I Will Try to Fix You
by Jay FireStrun
Summary: Three years after a tragic accident that destroyed a family, Joshua Berkeley has fallen from his former grace. The star athlete and star student dropped off his attempts at being the best he could be, and after high school became an alcoholic, giving in to the dark depression. Now, it's up to his best friend Maddie to bring him back, over the course of one weekend.
1. Friday - I Will Try to Fix You

**_A/N: Hey everyone. I been gone for awhile and I apologize for that, but work and life was calling for me to care about them. However, I am back. And I bring with me a new story. I will begin each chapter with a verse from my favorite song, which the story actually, surprisingly, fits very well with._**

 ** _This is a Percy Jackson and the Olympians fanfic, but we won't see demigod references until some time in the third chapter. As such, I feel the need to say:_**

 ** _Disclaimer: All of the demigod references I will be making do in fact belong to Rick Riordan, not me._**

Chapter 1: Friday - I Will Try to Fix You

 _When you try your best, but you don't succeed_

 _When you get what you want, but not what you need_

 _When you feel so tired, but you can't sleep_

 _Stuck in reverse_

Maddie sat down at the table, rubbing at her eyes for the hundreth time. Sleep was becoming something she wasn't getting enough of. Her friends had noticed this time, and were all seated around her, waiting for an explanation.

"So? What's going on, Mads? You're never this tired," Zack asked gently. Zack was easily 5' 11", and he sported bright red hair that was always spiked, a rather large nose, and bright, intelligent green eyes. He was well muscled and broad shouldered, and he loved to play the flute. He was something of an oddity in that sense.

"I'm...I'm worried about Josh," Maddie began. Maddie herself was fairly tall, standing at 5' 9". Her hair was brown and she always wore it in a ponytail. Her eyes were a piercing gray and her build was lithe and athletic. Her eyes were downcast, knowing most of her friends had already given up on Josh.

"Oh. How...how's he doing?" Zack asked after a long silence, realizing no one else was going to speak. The group, including Josh, used to be a tightly-knit group of six. Six kids that had grown up together and gone through a lot of hardship. Even though Josh had been a close friend, and had been there with them for so much, the only one he still regularly talked to was Maddie.

"More of the same...I really don't know what else to try. It's come to a final ultimatum," her voice was set, but behind the determination was an attempt to keep her tears back. Josh...Josh had been the glue that held them together. He was unfathomably loyal to his friends, and helped talk them through some of the hardest parts of their lives. He was always the first to show up, after a single phone call. He'd called the whole group together to try new activities every weekend.

Josh had once been a star athelete, and a captain of four different teams at the school. He was always so full of life, and it was nearly impossible to imagine him without thinking of that mischeivous smile, and that unruly mop of golden brown hair. His light gray eyes were always full of life and glinted with hidden mirth, like everyone he looked at were all part of some inside joke.

"What are you talking about, dear? Surely you've given him enough ultimatums," the smooth voice of Emily, the daughter of the richest man in their city, cut through Maddie's thoughts. Emily...Emily was someone you had to get used to. Her behavior towards outsiders was of that, 'I'm too good for you to even think about talking to,' and she usually dismissed other students. She was obsessed with fashion, and was always on top of the latest fashion trends at their school; usually because she started them. Emily was a talented seamstress, and that was how she increased her already massive wealth. In all reality, Emily was a very generous and kind girl, never afraid to lend whatever help she could.

Emily was a little on the short side, standing at 5' 3", and was skinny; healthy for her height, nowhere near anorexic. Her hips were full, a fact she was very proud of, and her eyes were a deep violet.

"I may be a fool for believing there is still hope for him, but I do. Which is why I'm heading over there today. I plan on staying the entire weekend," Maddie said forcefully, shooting up from the table and grabbing her duffel bag. She stormed to her truck and shut the door a little harder than she'd intended, knocking off a little charm from the rearview mirror. Bending double to pick it up, she recognized it as the charm necklace Josh had given last year. It was a little Batman symbol, colored in Harley Quinn's color scheme and featuring her symbol of three diamonds. Maddie smiled at the memory.

Starting up the truck, Maddie let it get out the first few chugs of the engine starting, before setting it in reverse and pulling away from the university. Her thoughts drifted to Josh as she drove, though she stayed attentive and alert. Three years ago, Josh had been in the backseat of his father's car. They were driving back from one of Josh's games when his father asked a rather personal question. Joshua's answer was enough to distract his father long enough for a truck, going 80 mph in a 65mph zone, to swerve into oncoming traffic. Michael, Joshua's father, didn't have enough time to respond, and the car was forced off of the highway by the force of the impact.

The car rolled several times down a steep hill, smashing and crashing until the car was a dented shell. Josh came to and immediately started trying to get out. He saw his little brother beside him, and took his hand, crawling through the shattered window. His leg got caught in seat belt while he was trying to get through the window, and his leg was cut by a piece of glass and sharp, twisted metal. The cut was deep, going from just below his knee all the way up his hip, stopping just above the waist line of his jeans.

That's where Josh claimed he hadn't known any more of the facts. Where his memory was blurry. So the police took note of what was left. Michael was thrown several yards from the vehicle, his neck snapped and his spine broken in three places. Elizabeth, Joshua's older sister, had been in the front seat. They found her upside down in her seat, a big shard of glass sticking out of her neck. The blood was still dripping, but it was dark, and there was no color to her skin. Caleb, Joshua's twin brother, had been sitting on the far left of the back seat, and they found him lying half-in and half-out of the car. He was sporting broken bones, but he was rushed to the hospital along with Josh. Adam, only seven years old, was killed when the vehicle started rolling, his small frame unable to protect him from the bludgeoning force of the car rolling down hill.

Caleb was in a coma when Josh awoke, and he was given the horrific news that his family was declared dead on arrival at the hospital. Joshua and his twin brother where given into the custody of their aunt and uncle, since there was no other family member to care for them. Josh and Caleb were 18, but it was decided that Caleb needing a guardian with power of attorney, a power granted to Michael's brother in his will. Josh tried to move on for those three years, constantly visiting his comatose brother and attempting to be with his friends like he was before. Yet the dark cloud wouldn't leave him. Deep, deep down, Joshua knew he was responsible for the accident. His secret had forced that confrontation in the car.

Josh started going downhill just before the end of high school. He quit all of his teams; two teams had him kicked off. His grades, once straight A's, dropped to C's and below. His fall from grace was so abrupt, so sudden and so powerful, that he dropped from 10th in his class to 30th in the class in less than a month. Josh deigned not to go to college, and instead moved in to his old home; a few blocks away from his aunt and uncle. Michael had left Josh a large inheritance, and had stated that, if in any event any his children couldn't collect their, it would go to the other three; if all but one child died, all of the inheritance would go to that one child.

Josh used the inheritance to pay for the house, and tried to look after it. He seemed to be adjusting better than he was during high school, so his friends relaxed their weekly visits. On his 21st birthday, Joshua fell into a deep, deep depression. His PTSD and other mental illnesses, and his massive sense of guilt, drove him to drinking. He was a certified drunk in less than a week. He drank to forget, drank to alleviate the pain. The injury to his leg, so severe it caused nerve damage among other things, was the reason he'd lost all of his scholarships for athleticism. His mood darkened, and his former love of life turned sour.

Joshua's friends, watching the strongest of their group dissolve into a shadow of his former self, vistited less and less, until Maddie was the only one who came to see him, every Friday.

When Maddie pulled up to the house, she looked in sadness at the overgrown yard. The grass was knee-high in many places, overtaken with weeds. The once immaculate white fence was peeling and warped, and the tree that hung over the property used to be trimmed, but now branches, dead and living alike, hung low and covered in vines. The gutters were overfull of gunk, so much that they sagged. Maddie had no doubt the backyard was in a similar state of disrepair. She stepped onto the weed-covered path leading to the house, and knocked on the door.

After several moments of waiting, Maddie went to knock on the door again when it was pulled inward a small distance, and Josh's face appeared in the crack between the door and doorframe, "What?" he said gruffly.

Maddie smiled, taking in the disheveled hair and sunken eyes. She guessed, hidden behind the door, a bottle of vodka was in his hand. He was wearing basketball shorts and a blue hoodie, "I'm here for our usual Friday sleepover," she said with a smile that was somewhat forced. Josh rose an eyebrow, almost like he'd forgotten. Seeing him like this broke her heart; seeing him defeated. He'd always seemed a little infallable to her, always the most confident and self-assured person she knew. But now, the black depression that gripped him so tightly made her wonder what she would be like, had she gone through what he had. She didn't like the idea.

"You know the thing we do every Friday?" Maddie prompted, putting a little pep into her voice. There went the eyebrow again, but surprisingly, Josh let the door swing open as he moved away from it. Maddie stepped in and looked around, noticing how dark it was in the house. Curtains covered every window, and the glass door that led from the kitchen/dining room to the backyard had a heavy drape covering it. Empty bottles, half-filled bottles, and empty cans littered every surface. Josh swept some from the coffee table in the living room into a black bag.

"Didn't have time to clean up today," he told her lamely, though he didn't seem embarrassed. He just didn't care about anything anymore. She nodded, though in her mind she thought, _'Or yesterday.'_ His minor cleaning job done, Josh settled onto the couch and turned on the TV, flicking disinterestedly through the channels. Maddie sat on the old armchair, watching him with sad eyes. She was so distracted by staring at him that she almost didn't hear his voice. It was quiet, and he sounded very small, "Don't sit there. That's dad's armchair."

Maddie almost wanted to laugh, but sensed that a laugh would not go over well in this situation, "Why? He's not going to kick me out of it, is he?" She asked, trying for a light joke. Josh met her eyes and patted the couch cushion on the other side of the couch from himself.

"Just...sit here instead. Not there," Josh said again, and if he weren't so depressed and emotionless, it would have been a plea. She humored him and shifted to the couch, leaving her duffel bag by the coffee table in front of her. Maddie sat awkwardly beside her silent companion, watching the channels flick by as he relentlessly tapped the _channel up_ button.

Maddie put a hand on his arm, "Oh, go back, go back! Football's on!" Josh and Maddie used to be football buddies, almost always choosing the opposing team to the other's team. That way, they could jostle each other and carelessly and carefreely insult each other. With a sigh, Josh went back to the football game, taking a swig from a nearby bottle.

This was going to be hard few days, but Maddie knew it needed to be done.


	2. Friday - Stuck in Reverse

**A/N: No disclaimer for this chapter. I won't begin the Riordan PJO part until maybe Chapter Four or so.**

 **Thanks to my reviewer!**

 _And the tears come streaming down your face_

 _When you lose something you can't replace_

 _When you love someone, but it goes to waste_

 _Could it be worse?_

The silence stretched out between them, on and on until Maddie couldn't take it anymore. She searched desperately for a conversation starter, and decided she'd try to appeal to Josh's old self, "Yeah! Go Giants! Crush the Titans!" she cheered, grabbing an unopened bottle of beer and drinking it. She was more of a casual drinker, meanining she only drank when it was a special occasion.

Josh's eyes lit up for the first time since she'd arrived, and he jostled her with his elbow, "No way! Titans are so gonna win!" he challenged, and cheered loudly as the Titans scored a touch down and pulled ahead of the Giants. Maddie grinned inwardly, mentally giving herself a high-five. She looked down on the floor and spotted an old football, long forgotten under the coffee table. She snatched it up and leapt to her feet, grinning at her old friend.

Josh stood up instinctively, knowing what she was gonna do. He set the vodka down, a good sign in Maddie's book, and took up a defensive stance, "Blue. Forty Two. Set...HIKE!" Maddie said, grinning again. The cliche football quarterback call was effective in getting Josh to smile. He'd once been Captain of the football team. Maddie got up from her bent position and rushed toward Josh, twisting as he tried to catch her. She got to the other side of the living room and did a little dance, "Ooohh! Touchdown!"

Josh rushed her and picked her up, causing her to shout, "Personal foul! Personal foul! Red card, suspension for the rest of the season-!" she was cut off as Josh placed her on the couch and started tickling her, a playful smile cuttting through his stoicness. Eventually, though, he stopped, and sat down on the other side of the couch. Maddie glared at him, smoothing out her hair.

"Glad to see you're still ticklish," Josh grinned with a wink, and Maddie huffed, crossing her arms. As a matter of fact, she was very ticklish. But she couldn't let Josh know just how much, especially if his old self was coming back. Josh reached forward and grabbed the vodka bottle from the coffee table, taking a long swig. They turned their attention back to the TV and the football game, the awkward silence successfully shattered. They still jostled and catcauled at each other each time something interesting happened, but if they were to be asked who the winner was, neither would be able to answer.

Maddie's stomach rumbled, but one look at the kitchen informed her that it would be a long session of cleaning before she'd be able to get a real meal going. Josh tossed her the house phone, "Order pizza." She smiled, once again remembering all of their past excursions as teens. The two of them were much closer than their other friends, a closeness born from their similar tastes and their dislike of the same things. There was something about them, from the long talks to the near-constant play-fighting to the time they spent together in silence, feeling content, that they hadn't ever found with anyone else. Pizza had been their staple choice of food during sleepovers.

It took twenty minutes for the pizza to arrive, and it took them about ten to eat the whole pizza. It became apparent to Maddie that Josh hadn't been eating hardly at all before today, a revelation that showed as color returned to his face. She made a mental note, if he didn't improve after today, to bring him food every day. She was content to settle back into silence, but something had caught his eye. He stared at it, and all of the improvement Maddie had seen seemed to vanish. He took a long swig of vodka before responding, "How are they?"

Confused for a second, Maddie followed his gaze and saw a picture of the six of them, from their sophomore year in high school. Six happy faces; faces that didn't know what horrible tragedy awaited them in the future. Maddie wasn't sure how to begin to answer his question, fearful that her answer would set him back even farther.

Josh's eyes bore into hers, and she knew he already knew the answer. He just wanted someone else to say it aloud, "They're doing fine. Tonya is starting her internship at the college's library. Zack has landed a few gigs already, wowing them with his fluting skills. Emily is taking her fashion sense and seamstressing skill to the mainstream. She's starting to become a famous fashion designer. Olivia, Grant, and Nick are on tour throughout the state. They finally started that band they were talking about." As she spoke, she watched Josh take swigs of the vodka more often. She knew what he was thinking. They were moving on so well. They clearly had a lot on their plates, but so did Maddie. Yet Maddie always came to see him.

"Oh. You know...you're the only person that still comes by. Everyone else...I haven't seen any of them in months. No phone calls, no texts...no letters. It's like...I'm there for them through so much. I'm the strong one, I'm the loyal one, I'm the one that always helps. But when I need them, when I can't be strong, no one's there to help. Aside from you. That's it. All of my other 'friends' left me when it became clear I couldn't be the strong one that they could use for emotional support. They were using my loyalty to make themselves feel better, but when I needed that loyalty in return..." Josh trailed off, embittered by what his life had become. He didn't seem in the mood for more talking, and it indeed became clear he didn't want to when he told her, "I'm going to bed early. There's spare sheets and pillows in the hall closet."

Josh stood and grabbed another bottle of vodka, heading for the stairs. Once he was out of sight, Maddie heaved a heavy sigh. He was just so different, now. There was a time when they could lie together and just...forget the world. Now, there was a chasm growing between them, and a flimsy little wooden bridge that connected their friendship. It felt like every step Maddie took on the little bridge almost sent the whole thing falling into oblivion. She couldn't let that happen. Sure, she was close to her other friends. But Josh was something special. When they were kids, they and everyone else passed off their closeness as mere friendship. What Maddie was slowly realizing was that it was so much more. Their feelings toward each other had started becoming romantic a few months before the accident, and Josh had started referring to their hangout together as being on a 'date'. Now...she wondered if she would ever get that back.

Rousing herself from her thoughts, Maddie headed upstairs to the hall closet. There were no bedrooms on the first floor, just one of the two bathrooms, the kitchen/dining room, and the living room. On her way up the stairs she heard Josh's voice, low and pained. Tiptoeing up the last three steps, she peeked around the corner. Josh was standing in front of the door that used to be Adam's, and it sounded like he was saying goodnight. Maddie almost let out a sob right there. He still said goodnight to his little brother every night. She knew Josh had taken over the master bedroom that was his father's, leaving all of the other bedrooms alone. She walked across the hall to the closet, opening it up noisily. She heard the bedroom door shut, and heard Josh's footsteps on the paneled wooden floor behind her. He stopped a few feet away, and she turned her head to look at him.

"Hi," he said softly, taking another swig of vodka. Maddie smiled gently at him, wanting desperately to hug him. There was so much sadness written on his face. It showed in the deep lines around his mouth and eyes. The eyes themselves made her want to cry. Once so lively and mischeivous, they were now dull and sunken. He wasn't sleeping much, that was evident from the dark circles under his eyes. His lips were chapped and cracked. He reached out suddenly, taking her hand in his own. The skin was dry and a little cold, but she still felt butterflies at the contact. Josh pulled her along to Adam's bedroom and opened the door. The room was left exactly as it had been before the accident. Not a hair was out of place, except the bed. The bed had a lump in the middle, despite being completely made. Josh had obviously taken to sitting here quite often.

"It's like he never left," Maddie whispered, and then she flinched, expecting some sort of angry response from Josh. Instead, she was surprised when he simply nodded.

"I couldn't bring myself to move anything..." he said sadly, looking around the room. Adam had been a lover for art, and it showed on his walls. Every wall was brightly colored in colors of the rainbow, the darker colors outlined in silver and gray. There was an owl on the space of wall above the door. Heavy curtains covered the windows, but Josh had turned on the desk lamp. There were drawings there, ones Maddie couldn't make out from the spot on Adam's bed, "Sometimes...I find myself sitting in here. Just thinking. Wondering if I was a good brother. To Adam, to Liz...to Caleb. Was I good son to my dad? Or did I rebel too much? Was I too interested in sports and friends?"

It was in this moment that Maddie resolved to get him out of this house. Away from these memories. She had two more days left. Two long, ardurous days that would either make or break their fragile friendship, "I think you were an amazing brother and son. You were always there to listen. Always there to help." She desperately wanted to make him believe it, but she could see from his posture that he didn't. He stood and moved to the desk, pointing Maddie to the door. She stood up and smoothed out the covers on the small bed, heading for the door. She waited just inside the doorway, leaning on the frame, as Josh stared at one of the drawings. He reached and turned off the desk lamp, heading for the door. Maddie swung out into the hallway with Josh close behind. He closed the door and headed off down the hallway for the master bedroom. Maddie sighed and went back to the closet, gathering her supplies to sleep on the couch downstairs.

Just as she was getting settled in, about thirty minutes after they parted ways, she heard footsteps coming down the stairs. There was silence for a second, as Josh hit the carpeted portion just below the final stair. Then she felt a presence behind her, leaning over the back of the couch. He didn't say anything, but swung over and down onto the couch beside her. She didn't say anything at first, though her heart was beating out of her chest. It was Josh who spoke first, "I didn't want to sleep alone..." he said weakly. He knew there would be no judgement from Maddie's end. And Maddie was glad it was so dark in the house, because it meant he wouldn't see her blush. She nodded and gave him a tight, warm hug. That was how they fell asleep. Exactly how they used to. But this time, Maddie knew something in her had changed. Her feelings were Josh were more than their puppy love as kids, more than their tentative love as teens. She was completely, undoubtedly in love with him.

Once again she had the feeling that this weekend would be the longest of her life.


	3. Saturday - Lights Will Guide You Home

**_A/N: Hey all! So a day of being unable to write this story has left me with serious withdrawal. I_** **need** ** _to write this story. I need to finish it._**

 ** _Only two more days until the weekend's over. Let me pose a question to ya. Do you think Maddie is going to be able to get_** **her** ** _Josh back? Or do you think his pain will win out? Lemme know in the review section!_**

 ** _Honestly, reviews are my life source. And hugs. And chocolate. Mmmm..._**

 ** _Er, anyway! So there will be official demigod stuff soon. Sit back, relax, and grab a snack and a friend, because the story, is about to start._**

 ** _** Disclaimer ** I do not own the concept of demigods as Rick Riordan introduced. This is a_ fanfic, _people._**

 _And high up above or down below_

 _When you're too in love to let it go_

 _If you never try, then you'll never know_

 _Just what you're worth_

Maddie awoke lazily, and after heaving a huge yawn she sat up and looked around blearily. In the otherwise dark house, a bright shaft of light shone through the open door.

 _Wait a moment..._ the door had been locked last night by Josh...and every other door was still closed. The light was a pale silver, which meant it was still dark out. Josh was nowhere to be seen, and she leapt to her feet in a panic. Her first target was the bathroom on the first floor, but there was nothing to be found. She raced up the stairs to the second floor and once again found no sign of Josh.

Her heart was racing and she took a second to apply logic and reason to the situation. Heading back downstairs, Maddie shoved on her boots and snatched up her keys, heading for the door. Her mind was running through possible scenarios: possibly, her presence had jogged something inside Josh, and he was out getting some fresh air on the porch. That was quickly dashed as she saw no sign of him anywhere, not even on the street in either direction.

 _Calm down, Mads. He could be anywhere, but freaking out won't get you anywhere,_ she told herself. She hopped into her truck and started it up, listening to the familiar chortling sound of the engine. Resting her head on the steering wheel, Maddie thought of all the places Josh would go. He hadn't left the house in months; perhaps almost a full year. He, and the mere thought brough tears to her eyes, didn't have any other friends to visit; not anymore. He didn't watch the news (he never did before, though) and she wasn't sure why that popped up.

She remembered from the aftermath of the accident, in Josh's first year of therapy, the doctor told her he was suffering from severe PTSD, and a common sideffect of PTSD was hallucinations. He was given medicine that would lessen the chances of them, but Josh was never one for taking a cocktail of medicine, and that's what he'd been prescribed; ten different kinds of pills to be taken everyday. Hallucinations, she remembered from her AP Psychology class last year, often included a significant person or event. And there was only one significant event that Josh's mentally ill mind would focus on.

She pulled out of the driveway and set her mental GPS to the stretch of Highway 79 where, three years ago, Josh's life was turned upside down.

As her truck approached the shoulder of the road, she dimmed her brights and began to slow down. Her windshield wipers were on, and she donned her rainproof windbreaker before kicking the door open. A figure was crouched before three small crosses adorned with flowers both fake and real. The ugly ruts that the car had left were filled in with flowers, so it looked like some great god of nature had ridden past on a chariot. There was a spot, much farther along the slope, where the car had finally come to rest. Peering down now, she noticed that there was a small gazebo with a few benches.

Josh's father had been well known in the community as a man who would always stand up for what was right. He was a constant figure of moral forthrightness, and people of all ethnicities and beliefs in the community looked to him as a symbol of unity and leadership. Several times he'd turned down the position of mayor, stating that he could achieve much greater things outside of the realm of American politics. So, in his honor, and in the honor of his children, the community had made this horrific scene all the more beautiful.

Josh was kneeling with his head bowed, in dark blue jeans and a tattered hooded jacket. The jacket hood was down and his hair was plastered to his face. She realized he'd been out here for hours, meaning he'd left probably right after she'd fallen asleep. He'd walked the whole way here; over seven miles, and over half of that time was spent in the rain, she guessed. His hand was resting on the cross that remembered his little brother, Adam.

Maddie remembered pitching in to help with the construction of this scene, remembered how all of Adam's friends had pitched together to make the cross. Liz's volleyball team and her coworkers had pitched in to make hers. Beside the three crosses was a small signpost, covered in writing. In the dim light of her truck's headlights, she realized she wasn't there for this addition.

Covering the sign were well wishings to Josh, telling him to stay strong and remember he had no shortage of friends; all he had to do was ask for them. Complete strangers had stopped by on their busy day to sign the post and write their own little message. Josh must have heard her approach, because she saw his shoulders droop even farther. He looked up, his tortured and hollow eyes now bright red from something other than alcohol.

"Hey," he croaked, and Maddie knelt next to him, her knees squishing into the mud. He looked down and away, and was silent. She thought he wasn't going to say anymore until, "Did I ever tell you exactly what happened?"

"N-no...you told the doctors and the policemen and everyone that you didn't remember anything past escaping from the wreck," Maddie said wearily. If he'd lied...that could spell trouble for him.

"I didn't, at first. Everything was...hazy. Surreal. Like it wasn't me watching. An out-of-body experience, as though I were watching through someone else's eyes," he began slowly, trying to explain. Maddie nodded, knowing that shock often blurred the events that caused the shock.

"Then...things came back, slowly. I took up alcohol because...after my first real binge, I gained a lot of memory as to what really happened. With each drink, it felt like I was remembering more and more. Now...now I'm sure of what happened.

"Right after I pulled myself out of the wreckage, I finally realized Adam's hand was cold. Dangerously cold. It was raining. Pouring, just like it is right now. I pulled Adam up to my chest and took up a position over him, listening for a heartbeat. I didn't hear one, so I started shaking him, pleading with him to wake up. I begged and cried and prayed, prayed to anyone I could think of. Nothing...so I held him to my chest and I started crying even harder, rocking him in my arms. I saw my father, a few yards away, and saw his neck...his neck was positioned oddly. I couldn't...I was still holding Adam as I crawled back toward the car. There was Liz, sitting in the front seat, blood pouring from her neck. Glass was sticking out of her throat. Her head...it turned slowly. Toward me.

"'J-Jaaaa,' she coughed up a lot of blood, still upside down in the seat. She looked at me and saw I was crying and she...she looked like she wanted to comfort me. Comfort _me_ , Maddie. She saw Adam in my arms, saw his open eyes and pale face, and tears came harder. I saw her mouth open, but then it went slack. She wanted to say something to me. I'll never know what it was. I'll never hear what her final words were. But Caleb...Caleb was the hardest to see," Josh was full on crying now, his hand clenched tightly on the cross for Adam, "My brother...you know how close we were. We were one person. Inseparable. And yet...there he was. Dead, I thought. He was dead, and I wasn't.

"All of them were dead, but I wasn't! Why?! Why did I get to live?! Why didn't Adam get to live, to achieve his dreams?! WHY ME?" Josh screamed, "Oh GOD, IT HURTS! I DON'T WANT TO LIVE! I don't want to be alive if they can't be!" Josh's eyes met Maddie's and he grabbed onto her shoulders, some of his former strength returning. He looked deeply into her eyes, sobs wracking his body.

His lips fluttered with each shuddering breath, trying to speak, "I...I set Adam down, and stood. I felt a bone break in my leg but I pushed on, heading up the slope. I screamed for help, seeing headlights up on the road. I stumbled and fell, but I continued crawling, my voice barely above a croak. And then I passed out. I wasn't even strong enough to get them help, Maddie! I couldn't save any of them!" He started crying again, shoving his head into her chest, just below her chin. He sobbed terribly, screaming as he let out three years of hurt and pent up emotion. Maddie held him tightly as he cried, no, as he broke open. The ordeal lasted ten more minutes, and then he gathered the strength to speak again.

"Maddie..." he tried to speak, but Maddie put a finger over his lips and shook her head, making it clear she wanted to speak. Josh was silent immediately, something he'd never done before. She had his undivided attention, and she chose her words carefully.

"Listen to me, honey. Okay? You couldn't have done anything for them. Their fate was sealed the moment they entered the car. As was yours. There's nothing you can do about that, and torturing yourself like this," Maddie brushed his unkempt and unwashed hair from his face, "Isn't getting you anywhere. Think of Liz. She was _always_ there to hold you as you cried, or as Caleb cried. She was the mother you never had, right?" She posed the question gently, and Josh nodded, sniffling as he tried not to sob again, "Well, imagine her in the afterlife, watching her beloved little brother literally killing himself because of something he couldn't control. Would she have wanted you to spend three years killing yourself? Would Adam, or Caleb?" She waited patiently for the shake of his head. She noticed he'd calmed considerably as she'd spoken.

They stayed in each other's arms for what felt like hours, until Maddie managed to convince him to get in her truck. She drove them back to his home, glad she'd shut the door before leaving. She had to hold him as he walked up the small steps to the front door. When his back was turned, she grabbed one of the wooden chairs by the dining room and shoved it under the door handle. He stared at her in shock as she was a little loud, and she stared him down, "Neither of us will leave this house, not until Monday. Not until you stop grabbing those," she said, pointing to the bottle that had somehow appeared in his hand.

One deep, long swig later and he was grabbing at his mouth, rushing to the bathroom. A second later and she heard horrible retching sounds. Walking carefully, slowly, she entered behind him and sat down beside him, rubbing his back as he was violently and helplessly ill in the toilet. He turned away so she couldn't see, and kept heaving and retching long after there was nothing left to vomit.

"Go away," he growled miserably, staring at the contents of his stomach. She only shook her head and said, "Too late." To which he turned his face further away and retched one more time.

"You're too proud, you know that?" she reached around him and flushed the toilet, reaching for a washcloth and turning him around, cleaning his face. He coughed and swallowed hard, and she offered him a small smile.

"Why do you do this to yourself, Josh?" Maddie asked as she pulled him against her chest again.

"The best cure for a hangover is to drink more so you forgot you have a hangover," he informed her dryly, and she scowled at him in return, "You know, this is the only clear time of day, when I'm lying here in this, this toxic, writhing mess. This is the time when I consider quitting all this drinking shit, when the afternoon or morning sun, whatever it is, when that streaks in and freaking blinds me, catching on the stupid white tile floor."

"Why don't you?" Maddie wondered aloud, listening intently.

"I guess I can never make a real decision about it. I mean, most any morning, here I am curled up by the damn toilet, and there's this wrenching twisting pain in my stomach, and, and my mouth tastes like bile and stale vodka, and the roof is spinning in my pounding skull and I'm choking and coughing and shaking something violent, and my body doesn't feel real or responsive or anything. It feels kinda like I'm dying, like I'm puking up my guts and my lungs and my, whatever else is in there." He rambled a bit as his hands played the story out in front of him, and Maddie watched on from the other side.

"But then the day drags on, and here I am all by myself, no one looking in or telling me what's right and healthy and reasonable, and I'm bored and I'm hurt and I'm so damn lonesome, y'know? And then I take a swig, and everything seems better, because, like, how can it be wrong or anything to do what makes it all go away? And so I do it again and again because, because for like a moment, just a moment, Mads, I forget anything else."

Maddie nodded, looking at her old friend's tortured face, and came to a decision, "Let's get you up to bed, okay?" Josh only nodded, and followed lamely as she led the way upstairs. Maddie was suprised as Josh headed for the bathroom first. She was afraid he was about to be sick again, and didn't expect for him to grab a towel and shampoo, and walk toward the bathtub. The upstairs bathroom held a shower/tub combo, while the downstairs bathroom was usually intended for the guests to use; there was no shower or bathtub in there.

"If you're going to stand there and watch me get naked, you could at least offer to join me," Josh's comment caught her off guard, and she blushed furiously before quickly backing out of the bathroom. Her usual response to such a comment would have been a snappy and snazzy comeback, but the raw emotions they'd experienced today had turned her on her head. When Josh was finished, she assumed he'd had clean clothes stored somewhere in there, because he was wearing USAF sweatpants and a physical fitness shirt that was made of soft cotton and showed off his abs. The shirt was sleeveless, and she saw a tattoo there she was amazed she'd never heard of before.

It featured an anchor, and down the shaft were the letters, _U S N_ , and on the hooks that split off to either side, spaced evenly, where the initials, _H. L. K._ On one side of the anchor were the letters _U.S.S._ and below them a date, _1945._ On the other side of the anchor was the word, _Iowa_ , and another date, _1946_. Racking her brain, Maddie remembered Josh's beloved great-grandfather (Michael Berkeley's kind-hearted step-father), Howard Lilburn King, had served in the United States Navy on the USS Iowa, the _Iowa-class_ battleship that defined a new class of battleships, during the years 1945 and never knew he'd gotten a tattoo honoring one of the most important people in his life, and felt a little hurt.

His hair was still the same length, he didn't seem capable of cutting it on his own, but it caught the dim light perfectly and made her want to feel the silky smooth texture.

She walked toward the door that marked his bedroom, and pushed it open. This room was even darker than the other rooms. Thick blankets were put up to block the windows in place of curtains. Josh sat down on the bed and sighed.

"I should really stop living in the dark...but how can I live in happiness when I think of my dad, alone after mom just up and left? He never showed it, but he was broken by it. He just...he accepted it too easily. He lost a part of himself, I know it, and he threw himself into making the community better, never talking about how he felt," he muttered, more to himself than to her. He was about to say more, but she interrupted.

"We all cope differently." Maddie tried to reason.

"Or we don't cope at all," He smiled sadly as he recognized her own vice, and Maddie watched him rub his hands together in his lap, "It just makes me kind of sad, you know. The days drag on like some measurement, like the sun going up and down cuts off each fragment of time, like it's that simple. And there's no end, we just live on and on and we rise and set like sections of time, and people sit next to us, or lay next to us in our beds, but we don't really know them. They're not really with us, we're all alone, all freaking alone, and if we're not, we will end up that way. Those people beside us or in our arms, they're the people who hurt us most, who shatter us and drown us."

"You really believe that?" Maddie spoke so gently as her eyes settled on Josh, his words just sputtering about and smelling of a habit he could do without.

"I don't know, it seems right." He shrugged and made a face, "But the part of me that was conditioned to believe in fairy tales, it stupidly still hangs on. Like, wake up, you stupid naïve little brat."

"Just because one love didn't last, Josh, doesn't mean that it's impossible. Everyone's a little torn up, a little naïve and holdin' on a little tight to somethin' stupid." Maddie leaned against him for a second, supportively feeling his trembling body.

"Even you?" His eyes ran up to meet hers, shaking with the intoxication that often drifted focus. But somewhere inside she could see that little bit of hope, that stupid naïve boy he spoke of, looking out.

"Of course, even me. There are a lot of broken people, Josh." Maddie spoke in a long sigh, relaxing as she watched him listen carefully, his gray eyes shimmering and admiring something he hadn't entirely lost. Maddie reached over and took his hand, trying on a comforting smile, "I guess the only thing we can do is look real close, maybe hope to find another broken person whose pieces fit together with our own."

His lips hit hers without warning and immediately he slipped his tingling, vodka-flavoured tongue into her mouth. It was so damn surprising Maddie nearly chocked on him, but her body couldn't even move much at all. Josh passionately took her over, and for a second she was suspended in shock or ecstasy. As his free hand slid over her cheek almost tenderly, the hand in her own squeezed and his knees touched hers, his body pressing so near it terrified Maddie.

She managed to move against him, but even she wasn't sold on whether she was pushing him away or kissing him back. Maddie pulled back suddenly, her wide eyes grinding against Josh's as they sat there in silence and stillness. Maddie was on her feet in an instant, and she had her hand over her mouth as she raced out of his room and rounded the corner at the stairs, flying down them so quickly her vision blurred about and she could have fallen right off balance. She hit the foyer and wanted to keep going, wanted to break down the obstacle that she herself had placed to keep them in.

Maddie pressed herself up against the front door and hit it with her forehead, leaning one knee onto the balancing chair she had shoved under the door knob to keep it shut. She knew she couldn't leave him, the chair had been put here to remind her of that. Even if it all killed her, be it the booze or the shouting or whatever else he'd do to her, Maddie knew she'd have to stick it out the whole weekend. _He's my friend, that broken down, sorry-sick guy, he's my best friend._

Maddie didn't know why Josh would do such a thing, but she guessed it had something to do with the topic and the mass amounts of liquor he had consumed since he threw yesterday's ration up. She felt the affected area of her lips and moved her tongue around, still feeling the slimy, taboo sensation of his tongue against hers and tasting the poison in her mouth. It wasn't that Maddie hated it entirely, but it was unsettling and revealing, and for all she knew, meaningless. But again, this was not about her, it did not matter how upset or confused it made her, the entire reason she locked myself in here was for him.

Maddie could not go back on that now.

Checking the clock on the small table beside the door, she was shocked to see that the time was noon. They'd spent over half of the day just...sitting and talking. She shoved off of the door and headed back up the stairs, hearing heart-wrenching sobs coming from Josh's room.

"Stupid, stupid...ugh! You stupid little, you, you stupid," he couldn't even finish, but his hand shot out and grabbed a nearby bottle, which was nearly empty, Maddie noticed.

He yanked it over and brought it to his lips, or at least Maddie imagined he did, as he was facing away from her, the bedside table on the opposite side of the bed from the door. Josh tipped it all the way back, and Maddie watched in solemn silence as every last drop poured down his throat, yet even that did not satisfy him. Maddie's eyes were broken open and locked on him as he shook the bottle to get the last of it, groaning angrily. Maddie's feet moved slowly into the room, the light catching on her clothes and skin as she closed some distance. With a pathetic whimper and shout, Joshsh chucked his vice right over his shoulder, the glass bottle flipping and spinning menacingly through the air.

Maddie reached out and stepped to the side, catching the emptied vodka bottle upside down in her raised hand. Josh froze as the satisfying smash was not heard, and instead was replaced with the muffled sound of a catch. Maddie could feel the few remnant drops of a seemingly empty bottle drip out of the mouth, hitting her long sleeve and her wrist, trickling down to her elbow. Josh slowly turned around, his body shivering with each stifled snivel, and their eyes met at last.

Maddie witnessed his honest pain right there, right there in those seemingly bright eyes. His lips quivered as he made for words, but for a few seconds silence was all that breached his throat. Tears were still moist on his cheeks and his eyes had become dark and red once more. Maddie lowered her hand and his bottle, swinging her arm and lightly tossing the apothecary's popular poison onto some dirtied clothes in a pile by his closet.

"Maddie," her name was on his lips, and it was rough and rueful, "I thought you, I thought you left." Josh sniffled a couple times as he acted like she couldn't tell what he was doing. Maddie didn't respond, she just stepped a little closer to him, her bare feet peeling off the wooden floor and finding a soft spot on his rug instead, "Just leave already, did—didn't I make, make it clear enough? Just, just leave."

Maddie was still silent as she made it to his bed, and she slid her knee onto it, climbing over his messed, wrinkled covers despite the difficulty and making her way to him. Josh moved away from her, his eyes pleading and frustrated, not angry with her but with something. Maddie reached out and touched him, taking him by the shoulders tightly and holding him still. Josh tried to fight her, shoving her away and arguing.

"Get off of me! Let go! You can't just—!" Josh's voice was stuffed with cries until Maddie pressed him against herself, holding his head on her shoulder.

Josh still struggled, pushing Maddie off as his arms were bent up between them. They sat there on his bed as he shook, yelling into the Maddie's shirt incoherent statements as he violently attacked her. His strength gave way abruptly though, and he held his whole body against her as his cries returned. It started off small, his tears and his words seeping into Maddie's shirt.

"I—I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry," Maddie made out between snivels and sobs, and she felt her heart in her throat, and quarrelled with a pathetic frown of her own, holding back threatening tears instead for consolation, "I'm sorry."

His cries were loud; they were passionate and violent, they were strong and forceful and compelling, and they were riveting and unstoppable. Maddie released her commanding hold on him to wrap her arms around his shaking form, rubbing his back comfortingly as he went on. This was the second time Maddie had heard such horrible aching, such driven sorrow.

Finally, Josh's cries died away, and they both relaxed immensely. There was nothing that needed to be said, nothing that would make much of a difference. This was a time for both young adults to come to terms with what had just happened, to pause and recollect, and to attempt to gather their thoughts.

It was Josh, after many minutes of silence, of just sitting and listening to the steady breathing of his best friend, who first broke the silence once more, "Did I ever tell you much about what happened before the crash? What led up to it and what caused it?" he asked. He had slipped down Maddie's body, his arms moving around her as they had gotten comfortable. Maddie could feel the damp spots on her clothes from his tears, the wrinkles on her shirt collar, the bunched up folds of her shirt as he squeezed her for support. Finally, Josh's head made its way to Maddie's lap, and he curled up, laying there facing away from her as she stroked his hair. Maddie was kneeling on bent legs now, and though they were numbing and tired, she did not move while he was in her arms and on her lap.

"No, Josh," she said honestly, deciding to let him speak, "I just remember your father was a little drunk, but the other driver was way over the legal limit."

"That's not true. My father was the one who was over the legal limit. Someone fudged the toxicoloy report to put dad in a better light," sensing her doubtful gaze, Josh looked up at her, jaw set, "I was there, Mads. I know what's right and what's lies."

Maddie offered an apologetic smile, "I know, it's just...I can't imagine people would do that." Josh nodded and settled back down.

"Yeah, well, believe it. I can't remember why he was drinking, but dad was most definitely drunk. I know he was lying to me about being on his phone throughout the whole game. I mean, it's not like I wasn't used to it, but he didn't have to _lie_ to me. So I confronted him, asked to him to please not insult my intelligence by lying to so blatantly, that I didn't even care that he was on it, just that he was trying to lie.

"His entire demeanor changed, and the look he gave me...it's like he wanted to start beating me to a pulp. I'd never seen anything like it on his face. Adam squeaked in terror. The rain was already pouring, and this is when dad started swerving a little. He started yelling at me, cursing me, calling me a hypocrite. He brought up everytime he perceived a lie coming from me, like when I would handle a confrontation with someone by taking it to the side away from public eyes, and how I would always come back with cuts or bruises, but the other person was never seen. Or how I would sometimes randomly leave the house and then come back, bruised or scraped. He accused me of doing drugs and getting physical with my dealers, and then said I was obviously dealing out drugs myself," Josh laughed coarsely, looking at Maddie, "Me, a drug dealer! I'm an athlete, and a very intelligent person! I would never-"

Maddie cut him off with a smile, "I know, Josh. You don't have to explain to me," she said gently.

"Right, right, because you get me," Josh agreed, continuing after getting a signal from Maddie, "I managed to get him to shut up long enough to let me talk, and I told him about the Greek gods and heroes, and monsters. Told him how, in those days, mortals couldn't see the reality before them, the reality of monsters and gods and such, and how it was the responsibility of heroes, like demigods, who were born of god and mortal, to protect the mortal realm from all things mundane and mystical. He laughed, hard and cruel, at the idea of me being a hero. Told me how I would never be like those heroes, how stupid I must be for thinking there was any truth in those stories. And that's when the truck hit us." Josh was silent for a long time, and Maddie offered him a few words of comfort and they talked about nonsensical things until, abruptly, Maddie realized Josh had wanted to say more.

"Maddie...you're going to thing I'm crazy. You may dismiss it as some mental thing after all I've been through put...I never got to tell him or anyone else, not even Caleb," Maddie inclined her head curiously, as he sat up and looked at her directly in her eyes.

"I'm a demigod. A...a son of Athena, I think."

"You're...you're a what?" Maddie racked her brain, thinking of Athena and what she stood for, what her spheres of influence were. She was the goddess of wisdom...she had gray eyes...as she thought about Athena, she imagined Athena's appearance, and felt like she was struck by lightning as she realized why Athena had seemed so familiar to her. It was like she was looking at a picture of Josh's mother; which she realized she was. The thought that Josh might have beem pulling her leg didn't even cross her mind.

"A son of Athena. A demigod; half human, and half god..." Josh seemed a little uncomfortable under his friend's gaze, but she kept staring at him, trying to discern if there was any sudden change in who he was, and found none. He was still the same Josh she'd always known. The same Josh she'd gotten romantic feelings for.

"How...how did you find out?" Maddie asked, her throat suddenly dry. Her best friend was someone straight out of mythology, a slayer of monsters and champion of mortals.

"After I slew my first monster. Remember Johnny Stez from Sophomore year?" 'Johnny Stez' was the alias a vicious cyclops was using to prey on mortals at their high school. He'd been drawn in by Josh's aura, and the bully was confronted by Josh after school one day. Josh saw through the disguise, and managed to destroy the monster with nothing but his photographic memory of the boiler room and some hot steam. Josh waited for Maddie to nod, and then continued, "Remember how he moved away suddenly, and how there was no reason for it?" Again, he waited for Maddie's nod, and then spread out his hands in a 'there you have it' gesture. Maddie just stared for awhile.

"Tell me what happened," she implored him, fascinated. Josh obliged, regaling her with a surprisingly modest recount of what happened that day. Her eyes were wide as she realized that the tall, obnoxious boy that had so taunted and harrassed her was in truth a man-eating cyclops. From that moment on, Josh continued to his tales of the monsters he'd battled and defeated, Maddie the ever-captive audience to his tale. It was very late, she realized, looking at the watch she wore. They'd talked from noon to ten in the evening. She excused herself for a second, to make them something for dinner; just a simple something to make sure their stomachs were full.

The meal was eaten in relative silence. "I'm tired." Josh's voice was much smaller now, and it was kind of shy.

"I know, honey," Maddie acknowledge as she moved, letting one of Josh's hands go as she reached over and pulled his covers out of the way, making it easier for him to climb into bed.

Maddie raised his hand in her own and directed him over to his pillow, which must have been more comfortable than her lap even though he beat on the pillow a bit and frowned at the way it felt against his head. Josh laid down into his bed at last and Maddie helped him pull the covers up over his body. He looked at her until she let go of his hand, and it seemed like he was waiting for something from her. Maddie noticed then how very small he seemed in that big bed of his, all wrapped up tight.

Maddie leaned over him quietly, pressing her lips against his forehead gently and slowly. He gratefully accepted the gesture and closed his eyes for the duration of it. Pulling away at last, Maddie backed up off his bed and made certain he had everything he may need, before standing straight and heading for the door. She touched the light switch and the brightness disappeared, but still, in that blind darkness she turned back to see Josh's nearly invisible silhouette. With a small smile, she turned to leave, but was stopped halfway out the door.

"Hey, Mads?" Josh spoke to her without moving, and she looked back once more, "Would you mind, um, would you mind going to say goodnight to the kid for me?"

It was a rather big favour to ask, Maddie imagined. Josh would trust her with the habitual evening visit to his younger brother, to the girl who had meant so much to him. Whether either of them believed anything about ghosts or spirits, it didn't really matter. Maddie didn't hesitate though, and nodded into the darkness.

"Of course, honey," she agreed as she stepped out of the room, reaching back to grab the door knob and pulling it mostly shut, "Goodnight, Joshie."

"Night, Mads." His voice responded as he let her leave.

Maddie leaned against the wall just outside, where Josh couldn't see her. She put her hand to her face and closed her eyes, consumed and controlled by all that had just happened. It was so overwhelming, all of it, that she wanted to just fall down to her knees right there. But she had made a promise, and so she pushed off the wall and continued towards the desolate room a mere few feet from Josh's own.

Maddie twisted the door knob the same way Josh had the night before, gently and slowly as to not wake Adam, as if he herself was sleeping, all tucked up in the covers. Maddie went in, and though it was dim, she realized then that Adam's drapes had been left open, and the lights from the stars still shone in. She stepped onto the cold carpet, feeling it stick up between her toes in the curly, synthetic rounds. The messiness and lived-in feel reminded her of her sister's room, half-finished projects lying strew with toys and loved objects.

"Heya, Adam." Maddie's voice breached the silence, and she winced as it sounded forced or weird, like she somehow wasn't doing it right, "Your, uh, your brother, he's really tired. Otherwise he'd be here himself. Any who," she touched the corner of Adam's bed but pulled away suddenly, feeling like she was intruding, "I just came in to say goodnight. I won't stay long, I just—"

Maddie stopped suddenly as she noticed the picture that sat on Adam's night stand. She moved over to it and reached for the lamp, clicking it on and illuminating the figures that were contained within the thin, wooden frame. It was in her hands now, and her thumbs ran over the image softly. It was the both of them, Josh and his brother. Josh was all dressed up in a warrior's costume, bronze and metal armor, and he was flexing his arms up and winking, with that same old confidence he used to be known for. Hanging off one of his strong arms was that little brother of his, trying to make the same pose despite his small form and lack of definition.

Maddie placed the picture back where it belonged, the young boy suspended in time while his brother, just one door over, drowned himself for the end of that past. She looked over to that desk that Josh had leaned over the night before and fondled so admiringly. She moved over to it and looked at the pictures Adam had pushed across the wood; those worn, dull-tipped pencils tossed crooked between the pages. Maddie moved one picture, the one Josh himself had moved when they stood there last, and she looked at what Josh had seen.

It was right there, half-finished but remarkably realistic. The colours were bright and surreal, the composition accurate and the position true. Maddie lifted it out from under the other picture that lay atop it and the notebook which pinned but a corner. She held it out before herself, the lines drifting a bit as the light source blew through the thin paper and altered it. There in her hands, was Joshua Berkeley, grinning and laughing and bright-headed, and on his arm? It was her. A sword was in Josh's other hand this time, high above his head. A wicked-looking creature was under Josh's foot. This little boy had been working on a composition, a work of his brother and his best friend.

Maddie realized it then: why hadn't Adam said anything of curiosity in Josh's recollection of the accident? It was clear, he did not have to ask. He already knew the truth, he didn't care what Josh was supposedly hiding; in his eyes, Joshus was a hero one way or another. It didn't matter to him why. Besides, Josh was already his hero, there was nothing anyone could say that could ruin that.

Maddie slipped the picture back where she had found it, though those smiling, carefree expressions were burned into her head, half-coloured and all. She reached over and shut off the lamp, backing out of the room slowly. Maddie closed the door behind her and leaned against it, letting the sights and smells and thoughts eat away at her for another moment longer.

She had to get Josh out of this house. He was living in a dream; a toxic, haunting dream.


	4. Sunday - And Ignite Your Bones

**_A/N: Big thanks to all the support I've gotten! You guys rock! I_** **love** ** _you guys!_**

 ** _**DISCLAIMER** I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, all of its subsidiaries and characters, or Heroes of Olympus and all of its subsidiaries and characters...let's just assume I own practically nothing._**

 _Tears stream down your face_

 _When you lose something you cannot replace_

 _Tears stream down your face and I_

 _I promise you I will learn from my mistakes_

The late morning sun was hot on Maddie's skin, soaking into the thick fabric of her shirt even though she had rolled the sleeves up to her elbows. The young woman had not waited for Joshua to wake up before she went outside; though she had left through the back door since she thought that crooked, leaning chair under the front door knob was too important to move out of the way. Maddie had found this old, rusted machine in his garage, and it was clear that it had not been used in well over a year.

The grass smelled so crisp and lovely to me, and the deeper into the lawn she mowed the richer and more green it grew. Maddie stepped into the freshly cut grass, her boots pressing indentations into it which unfurled slowly as the normally out-grown, shorter blades met the sunlight. She pushed the mower roughly through the grass, feeling it catch on thicker bits here and there and choke on moss and twigs. It had taken an hour or two to get so far, and now she was in the front yard, cleaning up the mess that time and suffering had done to this once beautiful house.

Maddie had already been around the windows and cleared out the cobwebs, and had even trimmed some of the dead branches in that charming oak tree. In all honesty, she was well past due for a break, but that was not something she ever took until the work was done, and done well. It was relaxing to her anyway, a morning with purpose and duty.

It was boiling out under that blazing sun, though Maddie was quite honestly no stranger to working out in the heat. The only shade she received was when she ducked under the low hanging branches. She could feel her body sweating beneath the folds of fabric that clung to her, and yearned to have been watering plants instead so that she might take a drink or a quick rinse. Maddie reached down and undid most of the lower buttons of her blouse, pulling it untucked and tying it tight right below her breasts. The breeze on her heating skin was so satisfying, like a cool mist or an icy drink.

Maddie pushed the old lawn mower through the tall grass of the front lawn, hearing it growl and desperately chew on the blades, clearly exhausted after being left unused for so long. She paused a second more and looked back at the work she had already done, catching a glimpse of Joshua in the kitchen window as she did. It was hard to see in at first, the house being so dark and the sun catching and bouncing off the now clean glass, but she saw him.

It was Josh without a doubt, and he was just sitting there, resting his head on his hand and staring out at her, watching her. Maddie paused in pushing the mower to stand up straighter, leaning one arm on the bar grips as she wiped the sweat from her forehead. She raised her other hand, clothed with the work gloves she always took around in the truck for whenever she needed them, and waved a hearty good morning to him.

Though he blinked blindly at her for a few seconds, he seemed to wake up and see her actions through the glass. A small smile spread across his features as he noticed her, and he weakly raised his own hand, not bothering to shake it around. It was nice, to see Josh smile at her again.

Maddie continued to clear the lawn for him, stepping forward and using all of her strength to force the mower to move again. She felt the long blades of grass get all cut up under her hands and spray about, hitting her pant legs or blowing about in the gentle breeze around her feet. She watched it clump up in cut up corpses over the young and fresh half-bodies of the remaining blades, and it did seem a mite sickening. But it would dry, and the wind would take it away.

As she finished up with the mowing, Maddie had another look around the yard, knowing her work was far from done. She still had to climb up and clear out the gutters, finish pruning the trees and bushes, fix the fence that was falling apart, and scrub up the patio in the back. Still, she could feel her body weakening as she became dehydrated, her breaths heavy and dry.

Maddie went around the house again, carrying the mower back there with her, and found her way to the back door. It lead to a small hall just behind the kitchen, where she knocked the dirt off of her boots and removed her gloves one by one while she came inside. The air was much cooler in the house, and she reached up and brushed her bangs back to feel the air on her face. As she entered the kitchen, coming around between the counter and the pantry, she noticed that Josh was still in there, pouring something into a glass from a jug.

"Right on time," Josh said without looking back, as she finished pulling off her work gloves and held them in one hand.

"I am? For what?" Maddie asked as she walked up to him and tried to peek over her shoulder, but he turned around abruptly and held something out in front of her.

"It's lemonade," Josh said as Maddie's eyes trailed down his arm to find it extended to her, the bright, pale yellow colour looking more than refreshing to her parched lips, "I made it for you."

"Aw, Josh, you didn't have to do that," Maddie smiled as she gratefully accepted the glass, and could feel just how cool it was in her hands, the ice pressing against the edges and drawing forth condensation, "But thank you."

"Don't mention it," Josh shrugged as he took a second glass from beside the jug, clinking it with her before he began to swallow the translucent liquid.

Maddie was so eager to taste it, she brought it right up to her lips and took several huge gulps, swallowing the sour but sweet liquid and feeling it cool her stomach as it slid down her throat. A drop or two slipped over her lips, she drank so fast, but she didn't mind it one bit. What she did mind, however, was the odd after-taste it left on her tongue. She took the last sip and held it in her mouth for a moment before swallowing it, realizing then what was so funny about it.

"Hey, this is spiked," Maddie told him flatly, and he just smiled like it was no big deal.

"Well yeah, it's just boring old lemonade otherwise," Josh stepped forward, standing close in front of her as he reached up and wiped her still wet lips with the back of his hand. He snickered a bit, "Of course, watching you spill it everywhere was fun enough."

"Shut it," Maddie reached over with a chuckle and messed up his hair—which she had just now realized had actually been brushed for once—bringing an irritable pout to his face.

"So, tell me something," he asked, fixing his hair while Maddie poured herself another glass of that toxic lemonade, desiring the refreshing taste whether it knocked her for a loop or not, "Why exactly are you outside, mowing the lawn?"

"Josh, the atmosphere in this place is keepin' you down, living in a mess like this isn't helping your health," Maddie told him as she took another cool sip, licking her own lips.

"Whatever you say," Josh didn't seem to believe her, but that didn't keep him from asking, "Do you, do you need any help?"

"Nah," Maddie told him simply as she put the glass down, and walked past him while patting his shoulder lightly, "You just go ahead and rest, 'kay?"

"What if I don't want to?" He bickered as he took to following her to the back door, chasing her heels.

"Trust me honey, you aren't the type that likes yard work," Maddie reminded him with a light laugh as she made it to the door, though he took it as something of an insult.

"Hey! I'll have you know—" Josh stopped speaking and flinched as Maddie suddenly turned around and closed the screen door in front of him, holding it that way.

"Don't make me get a chair for this door, too," Maddie smiled as she noticed the irritable expression settle in deep.

"Well, then can you at least, like," he shuffled there in the doorway as Maddie released his hold, wondering what had him so uncomfortable to say, "Hurry up? I mean, maybe I want to spend time with you, you know, before you go back to your regular life and stuff."

"I promise, we'll have plenty of time together," Maddie vowed as she pressed her fist up against the screen, balling it up and leaning her knuckles onto it.

"Don't you lie to me, Mads," he warned as he balled up his own fist and pressed it against Maddie's, though she felt more of the screen than she did the warmth of his skin.

"Never," Maddie winked playfully and turned away, tucking her work gloves into her rear pocket as she went back over to the shed to see what Josh's father had in the way of tools.

Maddie decided it might be best not to climb up onto the roof after drinking that hard lemonade, so she left that chore for another day. Despite the hissing sun and the tedious workload, she was definitely not the kind of girl who quit so easily. Maddie was able to get around to pruning some more of the bushes around the yard, and pulled up handfuls of weeds from all over the lawn and house.

She found herself kneeling on the front steps cleaning out the moss from between the cracks a mere hour or two later, and by then she was more than glad to get back inside. Maddie swept up the debris and dirt from the walkway that she had scraped up and finished watering the plants - taking a quick wash under the hose - before she was able to pry her boots off.

She left the dirty things on the mat just inside the back door as she went inside, and even though she had worn her gloves nearly the whole time, dirt still found its way onto her fingers. Maddie was in the middle of washing them up when Josh found her again.

"I almost thought you were going to spend all day out there," Josh whined as he came up beside her and leaned back against the counter. He stuck his bottom lip out while Maddie splashed some water on her face, and she could almost feel his gaze trailing her and her still damp clothing from when she had turned the hose on herself for a spell, "I can't imagine how much time you've wasted at work on your farm."

"It's a lifestyle, for sure," Maddie said as she tried to scrub around her nails, but the water stopped running over her hands as Josh reached out and twisted the knob off.

"All work and no play, Madison," he smirked as he got near to me, and Maddie felt her already sun-heated face grow warmer, "That isn't good for your health, either."

"That's what I got you for, isn't it?" Maddie replied as she dried her hands on a paper towel, tipping her head back so my head wouldn't block the lights above her from catching on any wetness or dirt she missed, "To keep me young."

"Maddie, you are young," he reminded her flatly as he linked his arm with her, tugging her backwards and towing her into the living room, "I think it's time I reminded you of that."

"Oh?" The woman in question wondered as she raised one eyebrow, letting Josh lead her over to the couch and sit her down.

Josh went over by the television and knelt down, opening the little magnetic doors of the cabinet underneath. While he was busy, Maddie reached down and undid the bottom of her tied shirt, doing up the buttons the right way again and ignoring the new wrinkles. Even while her hands were busy, she found it somewhat difficult to avert her gaze as Josh leaned over; she really wanted to see what he was doing, but even more, she wanted to watch him do it.

It was a terrible thought, and Maddie thought it had something to do with that tricky lemonade he had gotten her to drink. Josh bent down further as he reached into the cabinet, and Maddie fiddled with her fingers as to not stare.

Josh sat back at last and pulled a couple objects out from under the television stand. Reaching up, he changed the input of the television and shifted through the settings a bit. Maddie heard some electronic opening noise and heard him popping open some case, removing a disk from it. Finally he shuffled back and got to his feet, scurrying over to her excitedly as the television responded to whatever he had given it.

"What're we-?" she started, but Josh dropped some old, dusty controller right into her lap and plopped down onto the couch beside her, "Oh good lord."

"That's right!" His grin grew until it was strung up from ear to ear, "You and me Madison Stallanos, one on one!"

"Can't we just play a co-operative game for once? You always get so darn angry when I whoop your sorry rear," Maddie reminded him with the beginnings of a smug smirk, remembering how these types of competitions usually played out.

"Who says you're going to win? If I remember correctly, we were pretty even in skill," he argued as he set it up into versus mode, and they both remembered the familiar noises and screens as they played out before them.

"I think all that vodka has warped your mind, honey," Maddie joked as she leaned against him, nudging him a bit.

"We shall see," his eyes narrowed at her as he selected a character from the list, and Maddie rolled her eyes with a laugh.

The two of them had played a lot of video games when they were younger. Josh used to have the console and a small television up in his room, and he absolutely loved fighting and racing games. Maddie liked them too of course, but Josh had been especially interested in them; he didn't have much else to do at home or over the summer when there were few sports teams to join. They would go swimming and hang out with their friends and stuff, but Josh always brought Maddie home after for a few rounds of his favourite fighting games. None of their other friends cared much for that kinda thing, so no one else ever came to hang out. It was for the best though, those years were when they became best friends.

They played three different fighting and racing games that lazy Sunday, and every time they would be rather evenly matched, until he started getting cocky or angry. Then, Maddie would take the lead. If she didn't win, Josh would stand up on the couch and cheer, hooting at her about it, or he'd take another drink. Either way, Maddie did her best to assure she won instead.

While he was grinding his teeth and sitting on the edge of his seat, Maddie was leaning back casually as she fought opposite him in a fighting game. She would glance over at him now and again, and found herself smiling. Josh was kind of cute when he was all frustrated and determined. A great big grin crossed his face and she shifted her eyes back to the screen, noticing the way it froze for a moment as he smashed the buttons for an ultimate move.

"Oh yeah, here we go, get ready to-!" Josh hollered loudly, but Maddie cut him off as she maneuvered her own fingers on the controller.

"I'm sorry, you were sayin'?" Maddie smirked as he grabbed his bottle to take a victory drink, but jerked when he saw her avoid the move and finish a final combo, winning the match in a matter of seconds.

"Damn it! Why did that miss? I totally had you!" He shook the bottle around as the screen displayed Maddie's character as victorious, which only served to spill it all over his lap as he shouted in irritation. He jumped up as the liquid seeped into his clothing, "Oh for the love of - ugh. Madison, I hate you."

"You get so worked up, you make it too easy," Maddie told him as he put the bottle down, and she reached over to grab the blanket she had folded up over the arm of the couch after sleeping last night, dabbing it over his lap, "Here, lemme help."

Josh went uncharacteristically red as Maddie began to rub the quilt over his lap, and Maddie could tell from his contorted and scrunched up expression that he was holding his tongue. She didn't really mind cleaning him up, as they were best friends, and she had been closer to him than this. Maddie dabbed and dabbed closer up his thigh, and could feel him shuffling around under the attention, but she found it too funny and adorable to stop. His eyes suddenly found hers, though she was busy scrubbing and trying to dry the fresh stains to return the gaze.

"Do you remember how mad my dad would get when we would stay up all night playing games?" Josh asked suddenly, and she smiled as she recalled those evenings, "He'd come and knock on my door like twenty times to tell us to be quiet."

"You never listened no matter how many times he knocked," Maddie reminded him coolly as she pressed hard on his lap, holding the fabrics together to keep their skin apart.

"I know," he laughed lightly as he moved against her, slinging his arms over the back of the couch as he willingly let her work on him, "He had to threaten me to make us go to bed. But even then, we were never quiet."

"You kept me up all night talkin' my ear off," Maddie chuckled, though she had enjoyed every conversation they ever posed and communicated through the darkness.

"Hey," he sounded kind of hurt, so Maddie looked up at him to gauge his expression, which was somewhat concerned or uncertain, "I loved those nights."

"I never said that I didn't," she smiled and agreed with him, pulling the now damp quilt off of his legs, looking at the damage, "This isn't dryn' up too well."

"Whatever, they're just pants," Josh stood up suddenly and began to pull his pants down, right there in front of her.

Maddie had seen him in his underwear plenty, but him getting undressed in front of her was still unnerving. She watched the clothes fall in folds on the floor around his bare feet, which he then stepped out of. She noticed he was wearing thin shorts and breathed a quiet sigh of relief. He sat down beside her again as she fumbled the quilt in her hands, putting it back over the arm of the couch even though it was dirty and damp now.

He didn't start a new game right away, like usual. Instead, he leaned forwards and took a drink from the still moist bottle, though it was small and more habitual than it was necessary. He stopped himself as he was in the middle of it, though, fighting the urges off as best he could. Maddie's eyes trailed down his body as she noticed the abnormality in his skin; the darker, pinker streak that trailed down his outer thigh. She had seen it before, but it hurt her to look at every time. He seemed to notice my stare and leaned over a bit, looking at it himself.

"Does it bother you?" Josh asked curiously, and there really was no place for Maddie to say anything, it was a scar of his and from something no one could have prevented.

"Uh, no, it just-" Maddie began, but couldn't lie to her, "A little."

"Yeah, me too," he smiled sadly as he reached down and ran a finger along it, lifting the hem of his thin shorts up to show Maddie the extent of it.

It was a long, thin run of wounded skin, which had healed up quite some time ago she imagined. Now all that remained was that scar, that scar that was shaped something like a lightning bolt that ran up his thigh. If he had received it under any other circumstance, perhaps he might have been proud of the mark. But all that this particular scar held for him was memories of jagged metal, broken glass, and death.

Maddie could see the way the skin changed smoothness, colour, and shape over the mark, and she wondered what it might feel like on her hand.

"It's funny, well, in a sad way, I guess," Josh started as his expression hardened on the spot, his finger running along the length from bottom to top, teasingly trailing so high, "It was a terrible accident, and yet here I am, and I came out of it with just a damn scratch. And the others..."

"I think you came out with a little more than a scratch, honey," Maddie told him, and she honestly believed that. He was much more broken up than he seemed to realize.

"All the doctors kept telling me how lucky I was...well I didn't feel so lucky after all," He leaned back into the couch and slung his arms around the back, looking up at the roof. "It all feels like a sick joke, really."

Maddie knew exactly what he was talking about, remembering his story about the crash from the other night. How crazy was it that all of yesterday morning's events seemed so distant compared to the afternoon events?

Maddie moved forward and embraced him suddenly, holding him firmly against herself as she pressed her face into the crook of his neck. At first, he didn't seem to know how to respond, but as Maddie held on longer Josh returned the hug. She felt him rub against her and she hummed lightly, enjoying the contact with her best friend. They pulled away simultaneously and their eyes met in the middle, crooked smiles mirroring each other just the same.

"I really missed hanging out with you, Mads," Josh confessed to her then, and it felt good to hear.

"I missed you too, you crazy-haired loon," Maddie told him as she tugged at a little tuft of golden-brown hair which had returned to its old, uncontrollable mess; while still being clean, "But you'll have to miss me awhile longer, I would just love a hot shower right about now."

"As long as you don't drag me in there with you," he joked as we headed upstairs once more, her to the bathroom and him to the bedroom. Maddie chuckled as she saw him turn back around, watching her leave.

Maddie hadn't bothered to lock the door; Josh knew she was in there so he wouldn't accidentally walk in or anything. Maddie closed her eyes as she dipped right underneath the stream of water, feeling it run over her skin and cleanse her of any dirt, labour, or impure thoughts. She rubbed my hands together, the feeling of her own fingers seeming dull or boring to her. The crashing, spraying water was loud against the white tub at her feet.

Maddie slipped her wet fingers through her hair, splicing it against her scalp and creating rivers between the crown of her head and her neck. She ran her hands down her body, feeling the warm water splitting between them and running in streams, dripping off her elbows and chin. Her skin was flushed due to the heat, she wassure, but it felt so very comfortable anyway.

Inch by inch her hands slipped down her body, and she scrunched up her face in wonder as she realized just how much she enjoyed it. Maddie felt a smile twitch onto her face under the slipping droplets of water, rerouting them around her cheeks and dimples as they formed. Her stomach quivered as her fingers almost tickled the sensitive muscles, and right before her closed eyes there was a face, and on her lips was a name.

Maddie jerked back to reality suddenly as she realized just what she was imagining, and knew there was something terribly wrong. Whether it was his sneaky lemonade, his partial nudity, his confiding in her or what, something had driven him into the confines of her mind that were better left alone. Curse him and his lack of boundaries and his darn charm. Maddie fumbled and grasped at the knobs for the water and frantically turned off the hot first, hissing and wincing as the cold ran over her once enticed form.

After letting the cool water run on for longer than she had planned, Maddie finally turned it off, standing there shivering in that shower, dripping wet from head to toe. The flushed woman breathed a hot huff of air to attempt to release the heat from inside of her, but doubted it had worked. She knocked her loose hair over her shoulder, squeezing it through once or twice absently as she tasted the clean water that still hung over her lips.

Maddie wiped the water off of most of her body before she went to grab the towel, which she had folded up and left right beside the shower, but her hand found only vacant air. Maddie blinked in surprise but searched again, still coming up empty. Now, she was no moron, she knew exactly where it had gone. She bunched up the shower curtain and wrapped it a bit around herself as she leaned out of the shower against the tiles on the wall. There he was, standing there with a sheepish grin on his face, clutching Maddie's towel to his chest.

"Joshua Berkeley!" She barked at him, and he nearly fell over in shock as her shout echoed in the small room, "What, exactly, are you doing?"

"Uh, standing guard?" He tried testing the waters, but Maddie was in no mood for his little games.

"Gimme my towel already, would you? This isn't as funny as you think it is," she tried to reach out and grab it, but he pulled it away and Maddie could not follow without losing her hold on the shower curtain gown she had adorned.

"On one condition," Josh started, and Maddie paused in her feeble attempts to snatch it from him to listen to his deal, "See, I went downstairs to get myself a drink."

"Lemme guess, it wasn't water you drank?" Maddie raised my eyebrow and picked at him, though he didn't seem to mind the snide swipe.

"Well, no, but that's not the point," he shrugged it off and stepped a little closer, teasing her with his nearness to her grasp. He played around with the towel and his words, coming up with a way to say it, "See, I realized that my, uh, drink, had been spilled all over your blanket, remember? So, I have an alternative proposition."

"And what might that be?" Maddie asked blankly as she stared at him, noticing the way he shifted about.

Josh held back his initial smile by biting his lip, but his eyes flickered up to Maddie's and his words were unusually soft and provocative, "Sleep with me."

"Now-what?!" This time Maddie was the one who nearly fell over, almost losing her grip and slipping on the tub at her feet as she heard such a request.

"Relax, I didn't mean anything more than innocent, scout's honour," he argued slyly as he extended his index and middle finger and waved it once, "It would just be nice to, you know, fall asleep next to somebody for once. We were talking about those night when you'd sleep over, and, I don't know, I miss that."

"I don't remember sleeping much those nights," Maddie murmured as she recalled something more like bickering.

"Oh, and I'm the perverted one?" Josh smirked, and Maddie blushed as she hurriedly tried to tell him that was not what she meant. He just laughed and brushed it off, "I'm kidding! Just, well, what do you say?"

Maddie chuckled a bit as her eyes found Josh's nervously wiggling bare toes, before she looked back up to his impatient, anxious expression. Maddie leaned a bit more on the curtain and swung out towards him, keeping her tone sultry and smooth, "If you give me my towel back, I'd kiss you."

"Well, that can be arrang—" he stepped forwards nice and close to her with this devious grin on his face, which was dashed as Maddie snatched the towel back, "Hey!"

"For an athlete you're rather slow on the reflexes, honey," Maddie told him as she tucked the towel under her arm before reaching back out, poking him on the nose and giving him a playful wink, "But thanks for the offer."

He grumbled something as she swung back behind the curtains, proceeding to dry herself off bit by bit. She huffed a few more laughs at his grumpiness as he left the bathroom. Maddie thought about his proposal all the while as she wrapped the towel around herself and pulled the curtains open, finding the tile floor cool on her pinkish feet.

The bathroom mirror was steamed up, and she wiped it once with her hand to get a view of her face. Of course, the hand print she smeared across was faulty, oblong and awkwardly shaped by her fingers, and steamed back up slowly as she brushed her hair back over my shoulder. Luckily for me, Josh had not thought to steal her clothes to use as a bargaining chip for something else mildly scandalous.

Not that she found his proposal unpleasant by any means, in fact she actually thought it would be nice. When all the lights are off, people talk about stuff they don't normally say when faces and expressions can be seen. That's what Maddie had found with Josh, anyway. Besides, it's not like it would actually mean anything to sleep beside each other now just because they were older, right? Like he said, it was completely innocent, they had slept side by side a hundred times before.

Maddie slipped her clothes back on over her slightly damp body, hating the way the fabric stuck to her skin and gave her trouble. She squeezed the towel around her hair numerous times until she was satisfied enough with the dryness to let it fall over her blouse. She adjusted the wrinkled collar a bit and finished doing up her belt before she went over to the bathroom door and opened it.

Maddie stepped one foot back as he tumbled backwards onto the floor at her feet, his shoulders landing over her front-most foot. She stared down at him dully as his wide eyes blinked a couple of times, his body laying half on the hallway hardwood and half on the bathroom tile. Clearly, he had been sitting outside the door waiting, and had fallen in as she removed his back support by opening the door. Maddie smirked a crooked smile and crossed one ankle behind the other, placing her hands on her hips as I peered down at him.

"Do I even wanna know?" she asked rhetorically, and she just forced a little laugh while her eyes found the vodka bottle next to the door frame which had likely accounted for his clumsiness, "I said it before, and I'm gunna say it again: you're crazy."

"You love me anyway," he flashed her a cheeky smile as he hoisted himself back up, wobbling a bit as he snatched up the bottle and twisted the lid on tighter.

"And why're you still carrying this around?" Maddie plucked it from his hands, but for once received no protest, "You don't need this stuff."

"I know, Maddie, it's complicated," he tried to explain as he went right towards his bedroom, hoping the conversation would drive Maddie after him, "Who's to say what we really need and don't need, right?"

"I suppose," Maddie murmured as she did as Josh wanted, escorting him and his toxic friend into the room.

"So, when are you leaving, anyway?" Josh asked as he nodded Maddie into his room before he closed the door behind her.

"Dawn, actually. What, y'want me gone already?" Maddie inquired jokingly, and he gave her an irritable or pouting look.

"That's not it, Maddie," he told her as he went back over to his bed, taking the bottle from her hand and placing it on his night stand before reaching over and flicking on the lamp, "I just know you have school and stuff, the weekend is almost over."

"You'd have school too if you didn't quit after high school," Maddie reminded him, after all, he would have had an easy time getting a scholarship in sports, if he had cared.

"Actually...well, I lost most of those scholarships after the...crash. I couldn't perform like I could before. Besides the crash happened like, right before you all started college. You had been trying the whole summer to convince me to go with you, and I almost caved. Until that all happened."

"I know, I'm not blamin' you or anything," Maddie told him as she went over to the bed, sitting on the side of it and leaning back to look at him.

"You should, for one thing or another," he cracked a smile, "First off, for all those times I would take you off campus during lunch time and keep you late, you'd get so worried that you would get caught or get in trouble."

"Yeah, you used to tell me, _Maddie_ ," she imitated his deeper, smoother voice and he found it rather amusing, " _You really need to loosen up!_ "

"I totally said that!" he agreed with a loud laugh, which Maddie joined in on, "I was right, though."

"Yeah, maybe," she snorted as she leaned back onto her hands, watching him as their laughter subsided, and she recalled his wording, "Wait, you said first. Then, what's the second thing I should blame you for?"

"Well there's probably a much longer list than just two, Maddie, but since you asked," he grinned as he sat up, grabbing her forearms in his own and yanking Maddie over to him. She may have yelped or shouted as she was pulled up to him, but she was too focused on keeping herself from landing flat on him to pay much attention. Next thing she knew she was lying on top of him, holding herself just barely above him.

"What'd you do that for?!" Maddie asked loudly, and he actually full-on laughed at her. She shuffled her knees around his hips as she got a better hold of herself, keeping her irritable expression in check.

"Madison," he said her name much more calmly than she had expected, and her eyes clashed against his while she struggled for comfort, and Josh's playful expression stalled her, "You really do need to loosen up."

"Oh, don't you start, y'little tramp," Maddie told him off as she climbed off of him, instead laying on her side right up beside him and digging her elbow into the bed to keep her head upright.

"You flatter me," he turned his head to face her and met her eyes, smirking sarcastically.

"All right, I'm here," Maddie gestured to the bed and room around them, adjusting her cheek as it rested on her hand, "You said that you wanted it to be like when we used to lie here together. All I ever remember is staying up all night talking. So, you wanna talk, Josh?"

"Talk?" Josh became a bit more serious as their gazes penetrated each other so completely and honestly. His cheek twitched and teased a smile, but it disappeared as he sat up a bit, grabbing the vodka bottle off the table and bringing it to his lips as he tried to shrug the subject away, "You know, I feel like I've really spilled my guts to you, Maddie. I mean, what's left to talk about?"

"How about that?" She asked carefully as she nodded towards the bottle in Josh's hands, and he slowly lowered it from his lips, seeming less comfortable with speaking about it than she had expected.

"What, my drinking? Isn't it clear?" He scoffed obnoxiously, obviously trying to get by without addressing it too much, though that seemed to be exactly what he did in her snide tone, "I'm just a dumb kid with crap luck, running away from my issues instead of dealing with them."

"Is that it?" Maddie wondered, raising her eyebrow and waiting for more. He did not keep running though, he just let out a breath and actually answered her.

"Well, I think so. There isn't really any other reason I would do it, right? I don't really know what I like about it, honestly," he turned the glass container over in his hand as if he was studying it, "I mean, it doesn't taste very good, it makes me sick and clumsy and stupid, and it's expensive."

"I don't think it's much about liking it any more," Maddie suggested to him as she tilted her head just a bit more, observing his reaction.

"Maybe not. Because if that were the case, I would have stopped a long time ago. Because the more I think about it, the more I realize I really don't like it," Josh frowned and glared at the thing that fit so well in his hand, and he shoved it back onto his bedside table roughly, "I mean, it was his vice, Maddie. It's something that he left me, and it hurts almost as bad as those judgemental stares of his."

"You mean your dad, right?" Maddie had to be certain of that, though he made it pretty clear.

"Yeah. I never wanted to be anything like him, but here I am, and even though he's gone, it's like we've never been more similar," he sighed in frustration as he laid back down beside her, furrowing his brows as he looked at the ceiling.

"Drinking isn't exclusive to your dad, Joshua, plenty of people do it," Maddie tried to be consoling, but he didn't seem to bite, "Your dad had a lot more wrong with him than a little indulgence."

"It sure didn't help him relate to any of us," he nodded slowly as more of his life began to spill from his mouth, "He used to lock himself up in his study, or stay out late claiming he was at work. All he really did was push everyone away and polish off his own poisons. I'm not doing much differently, Maddie. I'm pushing everyone away too, worse," Josh's eyes met Maddie's in the dim light, and the dull orange lamp cast his eyes as dark red, glistening like wine and just as enticing, "I'm pushing you away."

"I'll be honest with you, Josh, I don't like it when you drink so much," Maddie spoke with her own honesty, leaning over him a bit, "I like it when you're you, I like knowing that the things you say to me, or, do to me," Maddie blushed a bit as she fought off the memory of his lips on hers and struggled to make herself heard and understood, about all of it, "I like knowing that all of that stuff is real."

"I never thought it would get this bad, Mads," he admitted reluctantly as he avoided looking back at the bottle, staring at Maddie instead as he made up his resolve, "But I can promise, I can promise that I'll be better."

"You don't have to-" Maddie tried to tell him, but he wouldn't let her go on.

"I do, I do!" He turned towards her and grabbed her hand, holding it between them in both of his own as he swallowed his pride for once, "Madison Stallanos, I would do anything for you. Drinking, it's, it's, whatever, I'll fix it."

"I wanna believe you," Maddie said gently, knowing things like this were not as easy to shake as speaking about it was.

"You will. I want to be better for you, Maddie. So maybe one day, maybe we can," all of Joshua Berkeley's features slipped into an excited smile, as he looked back up into her eyes hopefully, "Maybe you can look at me differently."

"Differently how?" Maddie inquired, finding his suggestion somewhat vague.

His smile grew larger and he bit at his lip in this childish little act, his natural charisma and charm enthralling her once more as the words came out and captivated her, "I think you'll want me to answer that sober."

Maddie thought she knew what he meant about that, and realizing it made her skin flush red enough to notice even under such dim lighting. It was one of those things that Maddie had mentioned, one of those things she wanted to know was real instead of just an act or thought based on lack of sobriety and excess of isolation.

He turned around and clicked off the lamp behind him before he decided to pull down the covers and climb beneath. Maddie followed suit until their bodies were beneath the surprisingly cool covers, and they lay facing one another.

Though at first their hands were touching between them as they stared into the vast darkness where they knew our best friend lay, that did not seem to satisfy theirr needs for intimacy. Soon enough, Maddie was staring up at the ceiling, with her arm wrapped around Josh's small body, holding her against me. His head rested on her chest, but it was not heavy or uncomfortable, in fact, it put her at ease. His legs entwined with hers beneath the wrinkling covers and he pulled her closer, his own arms around her midsection.

Something about all this felt like way more than simply friendliness, and it made Maddie nervous to think about it. She didn't know if most friends cuddled like this, in fact she wouldn't have pegged Joshua as the kind to want to curl up beside her anyway. But here he was.

Maddie let out a slow and hot breath as she tried to calm down enough to sleep, or enough not to alarm him with her frantic heartbeat, which surely he could hear while his head was on her chest. Maddie found herself smiling though, knowing that the darkness would obscure such a fact from his prying eyes.

She allowed herself to enjoy the moment while it lasted, because come tomorrow, everything would go back to the way it had been before the weekend began.


	5. Monday - A Change of Pace

_**A/N: Well, it's here guys. It's finally here. The weekend has come to an end, and it seems that Maddie is unconvinced that Joshua can pull it together. Is she right, do you guys think? Or is there hope for him yet?**_

 _ **I don't know if this will be the final installment of the story. I guess it all depends on whether I decide as the author to do more, or get swamped with demands from you, the fans, to continue. Either way, it's been so much fun providing this for you.**_

 _ **If you're reading this days or months or even years after I've first posted this story, just know how insanely happy I am you have found it, and hope this is the kind of story you can read over and over and over again.**_

 _ **Three amazing days have passed already, but the journey feels like one the largest and most important that I've ever been on. This last chapter took a very long time to put together. Here is the final product, made just for you.**_

 _ **Now if you'll excuse me, I have blisters on my fingers to attend to.**_

 _ **Sit back, relax, and grab a snack and a friend, because the story is about to start.**_

 _Lights will guide you home_

 _And ignite your bones_

 _And I will try to fix you_

Maddie awoke to the delicious smell of bacon frying and eggs cooking. She looked beside her and saw no signs of Joshua, but from the smells wafting from the kitchen, he was either down there making food or a robber had broken in and decided to make a homecook meal for them. She decided on the latter, and walked sleepily toward the stairs.

On the final three steps, she had a clear look at the kitchen, and watched as Josh emptied bottle after bottle of the toxic liquid that had had him so completely hooked for so long into the sink. There were three boxes, each full of glass bottles and marked as _Recycling_ and there were three other empty ones, waiting to be filled. Josh had gathered up every bottle of alcohol in the house and was dumping all of it away. He cursed and rushed to the stove, pulling the bacon off just in time. He listened to it sizzle. It struck into her like a wrecking ball that Josh had once been an excellent breakfast cook, his masterpiece was bacon.

"Mmmmm," Maddie said appreciatively, loud enough to be heard. Joshua's head snapped up and he smiled brightly at her, gesturing to the meal he'd placed on the table, "Eat up!"

The grin on his face and the bounce in his step was so jarring, because it was exactly how he'd been before the accident. There was still the shadow of pain, and the gait was uneven (the doctors informed him he'd always have a limp, because of how close he'd come to hitting the femeral artery. In spite of this, his eyes were bright and full of life.

"You...made this for me?" Maddie asked with a smile; her food was arranged like a jack-o-lantern, as Josh had cut the French toast in half, using it as two closed eyes and the bacon for a smile. Taking a bite, she realized just how delicious it all truly was.

Josh nodded, leaning on the counter from the other side, "Yeah, I did. I wanted to bring it up while you were still asleep, but you woke up earlier than I expected."

"Speaking of being up early, what're you doing up so early? You're never up this early," Maddie reminded him, and he nodded with a smile.

"Never had a reason to before," he said. The twinkle was back in his eyes, and Maddie gestured to the countless bottles stacked on the counter, "Is that...?"

"Every bottle of vodka in the house?" As Maddie widened her eyes and finished scarfing her breakfast, he grinned and put a hand over her own, "You said you wanted me sober. Well, I want to be sober too. I want to be someone deserving of Adam's admiration, someone deserving of Liz's love, and," Josh took Maddie's hands and pulled her close to him, stepping around the counter to do so and invading her personal space while he was at it, "someone deserving of you, Mads."

Josh reached over and touched my cheek gently, his hand no longer shaky with fear or intoxication. Shifting his toes against the ground and going up on his tip-toes to cover the height distance between us, he pressed his lips against hers. His other arm slipped around my neck as he pulled the kiss deeper, the heat of honesty trapped in their mouths and shared so intimately. Maddie closed her eyes to feel him there before her, around her, against her.

This kiss was different from the one we shared less than two days ago. This one was not aggressive or forceful, nor did he try to wrestle with her tongue, though she would not have minded so much. He did not taste like vodka, there was no haze over his eyes, and Maddie was not quite so terribly surprised. It was perfect and passionate and simple. She wouldn't even hesitate to say she enjoyed it.

Maddie raised her hands to place them on or around him, but she wasn't certain if that was all right. After all, Josh had just began to recover, and she should not tamper with that. Despite her own urges, be they formerly unknown to her, she reluctantly held herself back and only allowed herself to move her lips against his.

Maddie was reminded of something she'd thought of before this crazy weekend started. She thought of it as he stood in her arms and she in his, she was in love with this man. She was, she really and truly was. She could feel her heart fluttering and her mood skyrocketing through the roof. It was not something she had dreamed of but never0 considered would actually happen before, especially when Josh had been dealing with such substantial issues, but now it stood before her plain as day just the way Josh himself did. The kiss, however, did not seem to last long enough, but in its brevity sparked some indulgent desire to press on or chase him.

His lips released her, but he did not pull away or move from their embrace. She could feel him there, barely an inch apart from her, and she knew without even looking that he was smiling at her. Maddie couldn't help such a thing herself, and as if on cue the two of them opened their eyes and saw each other. Josh huffed a quick pleased sound as his eyes traced Maddie's expression, and he bit at his now rosy lips.

"Stay," a word escaped him, and though it was so quiet and gentle it struck her to hear.

Maddie opened her mouth to say something, before she realized that she had no idea what to say. She wanted to stay, she really did, but that was not something that she could promise him. This weekend had been life-altering for the both of them, but as it ended she remembered that she had obligations, had responsibilities. Maddie felt Josh's body in her drumming fingers, and had not remembered when she rested her hands on his waist.

"I-I can't," Maddie eventually stuttered out, though it was painful to say. Josh did not take it as an answer, though.

"Just for today. You can miss school once, can't you?" He asked me carefully, raising an eyebrow daringly as sh chewed it over.

"Well," Maddie stifled a groan as she felt his arms rest around her neck, his chest brushing against hers in an oddly appealing way, "You always did tell me to loosen up about that stuff."

"Hell yeah!" Josh cheerily agreed, teetering on his heels and his toes, shifting around in the embrace like he wanted to feel it all over her, "You really know how to make a guy happy."

"Don't go there," Maddie grumbled with a chuckle, turning the conversation back at him, "I think you're just a bad influence."

"Mhmm, maybe so," he smiled and agreed, spinning the two of them around so his back was to the foyer before he started pulling her after him, "So, how does this sound: you, me, a little ice cream, a little nostalgia, and maybe, if you're lucky," Josh licked his lips as his eyes looked at Maddie up and down, "A little something else."

"I don't even wanna know what you're thinkin' right now," Maddie told him as she shook him off, playing coy as she walked around the couch and sat down into that same spot she spent most of the previous day lounging in, "But if you mean a little work around the house, getting the cobwebs outta the corners, screwing in a few of those loose handles on your cabinets, then yeah, count me in."

"That's a horrible way to spend an afternoon of playing hookey, you're a workaholic—like, physically ill, you know that?" Josh told her as he flopped down after her, slinging his arm over the back of the couch and around her shoulders.

"Oh, y'love me anyway," Maddie smirked as he forced a sarcastic laugh, sitting up to grab one of the controllers from the coffee table he then tossed into her lap.

"Here, let me show you a little something about skipping school, mkay?" He shook his own controller at Maddie and winked as he reached out and poked the power button on the television remote, bringing it to life.

* * *

Josh sure did know how to waste a morning, I'll give him that much. I suppose all his hanging around here for the past year had something to do with that. For once, I did not feel guilty about avoiding my responsibilities, he made me feel better than classes or work ever did.

We played several of his video games, and I think he even let me win a few times, not that he'd admit it directly. As the fragments of dulled sun finally stretched across the living room floor, permitted to do so since he himself had pulled the curtains back to let it in, the morning had entirely escaped us. We got around to watching a bit of television while we ate some of that promised ice cream, which was freezer burnt and awfully sweet, but seemed to do the trick.

I managed to convince him to help me fix up a few things around the house, including some squeaky hinges that had been bothering me since I arrived. He whined for awhile, but whether he meant it or not he kept by my side, complaints and all. We finished gathering up all the empty bottles and stacking the boxes by the door, which I promised to help him take out to the recycling depot sometime soon. Now the front door seemed rather cluttered, what with the dining room chair and all those boxes stuffed with things he no longer needed.

I lingered on the sight of that front door as Josh took our dirtied dishes to the kitchen. It seemed so strange to me then, that I might have thought for a moment I had to force myself to stay here. Now the weekend was over, and I could easily move that chair from in front of the door, but I didn't want to. I did, however, find myself checking my watch a few too many times, and it seemed, now that he was free from the vodka's haze, his sharp mind took notice.

"Late for something?" Josh asked as he leaned against the door frame between the foyer and the living room, raising an eyebrow and casting a smug expression over at me.

"Not yet," I told him, and he silently questioned what that could have meant, "Listen honey, I can skip school, sure, but I did make a promise to be somewhere shortly."

"And where might that be?" He wondered, though he didn't seem as interested in where as he did in why. Perhaps, more so, why it was more important than hanging around here.

"This Monday is the only day that the whole gang has a few hours to see each other," I explained to him as I stood up, and he nodded as he understood, though it made him a bit uncomfortable to hear, "And this Monday's gonna be quite special, actually."

"Oh?" Josh leaned back and tilted his head to me as I approached him.

"Yeah. See, this Monday, I'm bringin' a guest, a very special guest," I hinted with a smile, and his confidence immediately melted away to make room for uneasiness as he understood what I intended.

"No way, Madison. No freaking way," he denied with certainty, pushing off the wall and walking over to the door, eyeing the chair that still rested under the door knob, "I am not some charity case to show off, you know."

"Where'd y'get that idea?" I wondered seriously as he drifted away from me, crossing his arms and rubbing his elbows a bit, "I don't think of you that way, believe me. I just thought maybe you'd wanna see everybody, I mean, they missed you. We all did."

"The only person I see standing here is you, Mads, looks more like you're the only one who really missed me," he turned around sharply and glared at me, though his anger was not with me.

"You're gonna have to see them eventually," I reminded him as I put my hands on my hips, looking blankly at his childish display, "Besides, it's best to get you outta here for awhile."

"I am not going," he spoke defiantly, and I sighed slowly as our gazes clashed between us.

"Alright," I raised my hands passively as I let him have his way, pushing past him as I went over to the door, "But I am. I guess I'll see you later, then."

"Wait," Josh raced around me and got in front of me, standing between me and the door, "I don't want you to go."

"I don't belong to you," I reminded him coolly as I tried to get past him, but he moved in front of me again, his reflexes sharpened by sobriety. I grunted as he did it once more; he was not one to give up so easily, it seemed.

I went to grab the chair, but he knocked my hand away, hurrying to make it impossible for me to move it. He plopped down right on top of the leaning wooden thing, despite how it creaked a bit with the pressure of his weight on only two old legs. I gave him an incredulous stare and shook my head, though he responded by sticking his tongue out at me and crossing his arms once again. I clapped my hands against the sides of my jeans and narrowed my eyes at him.

"What in the hell are you doing?" I asked monotonously, watching as he kept his balance quite well.

"I don't know. Probably acting selfish and ridiculous. I just want you here, with me," he chewed at his cheeks inside his mouth as the words came out, "They don't deserve you as a friend, you know that?"

"What's that supposed to mean? Of course they do, you lunatic, they're our best friends. Just 'cause they aren't good with serious stuff doesn't mean they aren't good friends," I tried to explain as I leaned down over him, watching him pout.

"But," Josh shifted, and the chair beneath him groaned a bit, "What if they don't want to see me? What if I make them uncomfortable? I mean, look at me, I'm a mess."

"We all get a little messy sometimes," I smiled as I started, reminding him of little facts about those very friends, "Like when Zack forgets to do any of his work because of his obsession with that darn flute, like when Gregory loses his drumsticks and assume the world is ending, like when Fiona breaks a guitar string and calls literally everyone to the school for an emergency meeting, or like when Emily has to socialize with people outside of her 'circle.' Like me, when I try and do a whole harvest alone, or like you, whenever you encounter a problem you can't explain with science or reason."

"Yeah, I guess none of us are so well-adjusted," Josh nodded and snickered a bit.

"So get off your butt already," I held my hand out between us, offering him help up from that odd, tipped back position that seemed uncomfortable and dangerous.

He returned my warm smile and clapped his hand against mine, clasping it as he moved to get up. However, that chair was not quite so well-adjusted either, it seemed, because as soon as he tried to get up off of it, the old thing creaked and slipped against the floor. It fell out from under the door knob and plummeted to the ground, the back cracking against it as the legs knocked up from underneath it.

As it fell, I quickly lifted Josh off the dangerous thing and completely forgot he was a bit heavier than I was. We fell over backward, but I managed to turn us so we crashed on our sides, not on my back.

Our surprised expressions mirrored each other, and in unison we looked back at the now fractured object behind us. The back of the chair had split through, and there was a scratch on the door from where it had fallen. We both huffed a few wary laughs as we stood up shakily.

"I guess we couldn't stay locked in here forever," Josh muttered with a small smile as we leaned the chair against the wall, and for some reason it seemed that both of us regarded the object with some kind of reverence.

"Nah, I suppose not," I agreed with a nod, my eyes trailing that old dining chair affectionately, "Alright, you go get dressed while I pack up the truck."

"Aye-aye," he gave me a lazy salute as he went up to her bedroom to get socks or shoes or whatever he needed.

I pried that front door open at last, but instead of being blinded by the sun as I would expect from a summer day, I was greeted with a warm summer rain. Not that it bothered me, seeing as how my wide-brimmed hat kept it out of my eyes. I loved this old hat. It was something Josh had gotten me so long ago, when my big brother handed me the responsibility of working the farm right alongside him. To celebrate, Josh had bought me a Stetson and a cute little air freshener, after Mark presented me with the truck.

I hoisted up a few of those boxes and carried them on out anyway. The empty bottles made small specks of musical notes as the rain hit them, and I found it oddly charming. It only took a couple trips to get all of the boxes, and I returned once more to grab my dufflebag, which I shoved back behind my seat.

By the time I returned to the house, Joshua Berkeley was coming down the stairs. He had put on his old gray hooded jacket, something he used to be known for wearing when he wasn't in his athletic gear. He was also wearing a pair of dark gray jeans. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs in the foyer and looked out the front door, noticing the rain. By then, I was already damp from the trips to and from the truck, but I realized then that the last time he was in the rain, he'd gone to see where his family had been torn apart.

Joshua Berkeley used to love the rain, it never troubled him one bit. He'd always run right out there, telling me he was looking for the rainbows. Josh always said that you couldn't peg that kind of natural beauty to science; a far cry from his other beliefs revolving around science. Now though, he just stared at it and kept his hands in the pockets of his undone jacket.

"It's raining," he told me dully, as if I didn't notice. I smirked a bit as I stood on the mat just outside the front of the door.

"Y'know? I think you're right," I said sarcastically as I raised my hand as if to catch the falling drops.

"Smart ass," he scoffed at my remark, moving another few paces until he was just inside the doorway, though he looked uneasy about going any further, "I don't know about this, Mads," he tried to make excuses, but I was not about to take any.

"Come on, honey, I'm right here," I stepped one foot into the doorway and extended my hand to him once more. He looked at it for a moment like he was trying to figure it out, which only brought an adoring smile to my face, "I can wait all day, unless you want me to carry you outta there."

Josh sighed inaudibly as he made up his mind, and grabbed the door knob in his hand as he took the last step. His hand landed in mine, which was damp and flushed from the rain and exertion. I led him out the door, which he pulled shut behind him as he willingly followed me. The slight overhang from the roof above him was short, and he walked out from underneath it hesitantly, blinking a bit as the rain touched his face. I smiled as I dragged him faster, pulling us into a jog towards the truck.

Leaning his head back, he looked up at the overcast skies, rain tapping against his cheeks and lips all the while. Gradually, I saw that same old endearing grin slide across his face; as if his lips were made of sugar and rainwater knew best how to melt them. Josh left everything else behind in that dark old house for me, for me and this magic in the air, be it rain or something less scientific.

I pulled the passenger's side door open for him and helped him in, closing it up after him before going around to my own side. I jumped up the foot or two distance the truck had above the ground, and landed in my seat. It all fell quieter as I closed my own door, and the rain danced around us making images and tunes on the wind shield. He still seemed rather out of his comfort zone as he adjusted in the seat, avoiding my eye line. I suppose being in a vehicle again after what happened, and after spending the past several months indoors, it was a little unnerving. And he'd not exactly been in the best place the last time I'd helped him into my truck. I don't know if would ever forget that day.

"Hey," I spoke as I reached over and put my hand on his thigh, commanding her attention, "Relax, I thought that was what you're best at?"

"Maybe this wasn't a great idea," Josh argued, though he did not seem invested in one side or the other. The more he thought about it, looking around the truck and the big wide spaces around him, the more uneasy he got. His hands fidgeted in his lap, and he shifted around in his seat several times before his voice cracked out in a higher pitch than usual, "I can't do this."

"Yes, you can! Here," I said back, leaning over and pressing down the lock in the door, watching his eyes widen with mild fear or shock. I climbed further over him, grabbing the seatbelt from behind his shoulder and pulling it across his body, clicking it into the buckle, "Now stay put."

"Are you kidnapping me?" He asked in disbelief as I turned on the truck, which roared and shook beneath our seats.

"I reckon I just might be," I affirmed as I put it into gear, driving us away from that familiar house that had kept him captive long before I arrived.

"Are you going to drive me to some vacant lot and rape me too?" Josh growled, though it seemed like he was being more playful than aggressive.

"It isn't rape if you beg me for it first," I smirked as I crossed my hands over each other two or three times to get a full turn around the block.

"Oh, listen to you with the jokes!" He cried as he threw his hands up before sinking into his seat. Josh did not seem angry with me though, as he looked back over and seemed to trace me with his eyes.

I knew that he was the kind of person who needed a bit of a push once in a while, and it seemed I was right. The further we went, the less uncomfortable he became. I reached over and touched his shoulder, squeezing it supportively as he nuzzled me in acceptance. I couldn't do it for long of course, as the manual transmission called for my commands loudly. Due to the old truck's heaving, each time I changed the gears we both shifted a bit in our seats, which felt almost intimate between us.

Josh sat up a bit when he caught sight of himself in the side mirror, and cranked his arm around as he rolled down his window to get the rain water off of it. He leaned closer as he reached out and knocked some drops of water off the mirror itself, staring at his reflection all the while. He reached up and touched his once shorter and shinier hair, something entirely unique about him that he seemed to have let slide. Now his hair was longer and as such lost some of its golden shine, and it bothered him again.

"Jeez, I can only imagine what everyone is going to say about this," Josh furrowed his eyebrows as he ran his fingers through it with dissatisfaction.

I watched him carefully as he seemed so upset about it, when I was struck with an idea. I reached up and grabbed the brim of my Stetson, which was only slightly damp as it was good in rainy weather, and picked it up. I leaned closer to him and pulled it over his head, knocking it right over his eyes as I did. He was surprised as he pushed it back up, looking over at me with grateful eyes.

"Now no one can see you've lost that golden sheen of yours," I told him passively as I glanced at him, before checking my rear-view for passing cars, which reminded me of something that dangled right in front of our faces, "Besides, you match my air freshener."

"Your-?" He started to ask, but the memory came back to him as he noticed it hanging there, and this great big smile spread across his face as he did, "You still have that thing?"

"Of course. It's cute, isn't it?" I asked as I flicked it, sending it spinning around in front of us, "And it reminds me of a certain someone."

"You think I'm cute?" Josh asked deviously as his grin spread, and he leaned closer to see the blush on my face.

"That isn't what I meant!" I denied as I watched the road, squeezing my hands on the steering wheel until he stopped snickering. I shook my head back and forth as I released a small smile, loving our familiar banter.

It wasn't a particularly long drive to where I was meeting the gang, which was in the parking lot behind the library on campus. Granted, not all of us went to that college, but it was an adequate meeting spot regardless. I was surprised that I had got in at all honestly, my grades were nothing to write home about, unlike Josh's had been, but I was a hard worker.

Josh kicked his feet up onto the dashboard despite my blank and irritable expression, and tipped that hat of mine over his eyes. He did look pretty sharp all dressed up in his jacket and those ripped jeans, I hadn't seen him so confident in a good long time. I actually had to force myself to look away from him to keep focused on the road. He glanced over at me from under the brim and got the nerve to strike up conversation.

"Your radio broken, Mads?" Josh asked as she gestured at the console in my truck. Honestly, it was not in the best shape, nothing in this old rust bucket was.

"Like everythin' else," I told him as I changed lanes, checking my mirrors through the slowly passing rain.

I could tell he did have something to say, from the way he kept sucking on his words, but I waited patiently until he found that they tasted good enough to share, "So, you're coming over on Friday, right?"

"Yeah, I told you I would. Every week, remember?" I agreed as I saw the sign for the college on the lawn in front of the entrance, which I turned towards.

"Good," he nodded slowly as he watched the scenery pass us by through the much clearer windows, as there was no longer rain pounding on them. His voice came again though, "Maybe we can do some more work around the house. There's a lot that needs fixing up."

"Alright, now why're you the one mentioning house work?" I asked skeptically as I cast him a glance before pulling onto the main road around the campus.

"Well, to be honest? I'm selling the place, Maddie," Josh revealed, and I was surprised to hear such a thing. He knocked his feet off of the dashboard as he sat up and spoke seriously, "I can't live there any more, it's too quiet, too stuffed up with memories. You know?"

"Yeah, I understand," I agreed with a few nods, hoping the subject was not too sensitive.

"In fact...Maddie, I remember hearing a long time ago about this place for people like me. A...a camp, I think. A camp where demigods can be safe, and their family members can be safe. It's only for the summer, though, from what I remember. During the off time I may get an apartment, and put the rest of the stuff into storage," he told me as he leaned his cheek on his hand, looking out the window instead of at me.

I played with my cheek between my teeth as I tried to work up the courage to speak again, and found myself glancing over at him incessantly until I did, "Well, you could always," I swallowed my stomach which had jumped up into my throat, or so it felt, "You could always stay with me."

Josh's attention darted over to me, and his eyes grabbed mine forcefully. At first, I couldn't really tell if he was angry or hesitant or what, seeing as how I had to focus on finding my way into the parking lot. His voice called to me though, "What?"

"I mean, just for a while, just during the summer until you sell the house, or find a place, or," I glanced into his eyes apprehensively, "Until you wanna leave."

He stared at me as I pulled up into the parking lot, though my attention was more on him than the drive. Finally, some kind of joy tugged at his lips and pulled them up into a smile, "I think I'd like that."

"Yeah, me too," I agreed even though I tried to hide the reflective smile that graced my own features.

As the car came to a halt, Josh caught sight of Zack, sitting on a bench and too caught up on a piece of sheet music and playing that flute to notice us. His hair stuck up straight despite the rain we'd just encountered, and now Josh started getting apprehensive.

"Alright honey, here we are," I told him as if he couldn't tell, and he just sort of nodded slowly, "Now, I know you ain't the shy type. Come on," I reached over and unlocked his door, letting him undo his seatbelt for himself. Still though, he just sat there uncertainly, "He isn't gonna bite you."

I kicked open my own door and hopped out, stepping my trusted cowboy boots onto the cool, wet pavement. I came around the truck to Josh's side, and still Zack didn't even bother to look up from whatever had peaked his interest this time. Josh let out a shaky breath as I pulled the door open and leaned into the open window, watching him shuffle out of the seat.

He stepped onto the concrete and tested each foot against the hard ground, his feet not quite accustomed to shoes any more. He didn't say anything or move to follow me to greet our friend, instead he waited for confirmation or something. I crossed my arms over the door as I stood on my tip toes, leaning through the window to get nice and close to him.

"You aren't scared, are you?" I teased him, and she immediately got defensive.

"No!" He argued defiantly as he pouted out his bottom lip, shielding himself behind the open passenger's door, "I just, look, I haven't been outside my house much in the last few months and now I'm all the way across town with you and, and sober, and going to have to try and be civil and normal and, and whatever."

"Normal? Who said y'gotta be normal?" I asked him as I raised an eyebrow, and he looked away from me as his hands played in his pockets, "There was a time that me, you, and all of our friends hung out together without even considering it might be uncomfortable. In that way, nothin's really changed. Why y'gotta make this out to be a big deal?"

"I just don't feel all that close to them any more," he admitted with a sigh, his eyes coming back to mine as they always did.

"Maddie!" We both flinched as my name was called out, and I looked over my shoulder to see Zack closing up the flute case and getting to his feet, waving at me. It seemed that he had not even noticed Jos, seeing as how he was standing directly behind me and the truck door.

"Look, just be yourself, alright? They already like you; they were your friends, Joshua. They _are_ your friends." I reminded him in a whisper as I heard Zack approaching us.

"I was beginning to think you weren't coming, you're never late. Well, regardless, Emily should be here with the the loons in a few minutes," Zack kept speaking as he came up to me, and I looked back at him once more. He stopped a few feet behind me with a questioning gaze, and he tilted his head as he asked, "Why are you standing there by the door?"

"Hey Zack," I greeted him and pulled back off of the door, "You remember Joshua Berkeley, don'tcha?"

I moved out of the way so that they could see each other, and the two of them just stood there in silence for a moment. Josh seemed most uncomfortable, as he shifted around until I closed the passenger's side door. His eyes hit mine pleadingly, and I smiled warmly before he removed his hand from his pocket, taking mine in his own as if searching for support. I tugged him after me as I stepped over to Zack, who seemed completely surprised by his appearance.

I nudged Josh, and through his nervously faked smile, he managed to speak, "S'up?"

"Joshua?" Zack's voice rang out in shock as he looked at him, shaking his head in disbelief, "Is that you? Well, of course it's you, I mean, why are you, how did—?"

"And here I thought you were the smart one," Josh remarked teasingly, and Zack's face lit up at the familiar hazing.

"I'm so glad to see you!" The buff flutist nearly shouted, and Josh blinked and tensed his shoulders up as he kept going, "I can't believe you're here, I haven't seen you in, in months!"

"Yeah, it's been a while," Josh agreed anxiously as his fingers moved in mine, and I could feel his palm sweating. I squeezed a little harder until he relaxed, and Zack's expression shifted to curiosity.

"So," his eyes ran along between us as he noticed the hat on Josh's head, and his hand in my own. He smiled a bit as it kind of came together, "I guess a lot happened over the last few days." Unbeknownst to the two of us at the time, Zack and all of our other friends had long ago decided to sit back and wait for us to realize our true feelings for each other.

"Yeah, Mads here locked me in my own house and tried to kidnap me," Josh explained with a smirk, leaning against me as he spoke of it.

"Doesn't look like you minded too much," Zack added, and Josh opened his mouth to make a snotty remark, but found nothing except the rosiness of his own cheeks.

"No, I guess I was just a bit difficult," Josh admitted as he seemed to become more comfortable in the company, "Like that's anything new."

"Well, how are you feeling? I don't mean to pry or anything, but, are you okay?" Zack asked nervously. Josh didn't mind though.

"I'm a lot better now, thanks to Maddie," he swung my hand in his own and brought back that trademark smirk, though his honesty spilled out once more, "I feel like, like I just woke up. Like everything in the past year, and maybe before then, like all of that was some fuzzy dream or nightmare. You know?"

"That's good to hear," Zack agreed with a few nods, clutching flute case tightly. His eyes shifted from us to the parking lot, which we had our backs to, "Oh, there's Emily."

Zack raised his hand to wave to the vehicle that pulled up a little ways away from my own. Josh and myself turned around and peered back, recognizing the vehicle as Emily's and the occupants as our remaining friends. Josh squeezed my hand in anticipation, but I just continued to supportively hold it in my own. One of the doors burst open before the car came to a full stop, and I swear I could hear Emily squealing from inside about how dangerous that was.

" _JOSHIE_!?" A boisterous and flamboyant voice called, and both of us winced to hear it. We knew what was coming next. " _Oh my gosh_!"

"Crap," Josh muttered as she recognized the girl who leapt from Emily's car, a certain bubbly, electric blue-haired girl who stood at about 5 feet evenly and who, for a girl who was carrying around a few extra pounds, cleared the distance between them in quick strides, "Nice knowing you."

Our blue-haired friend nearly toppled poor Josh over in her bounding hug, and I could almost hear his spine crack under the pressure. I let his hand go as I covered my mouth to keep from chuckling, but he did not seem quite as pleased. His eyes met mine over our friend's shoulder, and I could see just how uncomfortable he was in the embrace, if his tense body language didn't give that away already.

"How 'bout giving the guy a little room to breathe, Fi?" I asked politely as Josh flashed me a very grateful expression.

"I'm sorry, Joshie!" Fiona pulled away and checked on the choking man, who pushed her away, "I'm just so excited to see you! I cannot believe-you're wearing Maddie's hat?" She interrupted her own sentence with a different question, and we both just laughed nervously.

"Fiona, darling, really," Emily's voice chimed in as she and Gregory came over to us. Emily locked her car doors with the press of a button over her shoulder as she went on, "You're going to scare her off doing things like that."

"I said I was sorry!" Fiona finally stepped away and Josh scurried back to my side, wiping his jacket off as if Fiona had left cooties on it.

"Well, it certainly is a surprise to have you grace us with your presence," Emily beamed as she joined our little circle, her eyes on my still grouchy and uncertain best friend, "It really has been too long, my dear."

"Yeah, guess I took things a little far with the brooding, didn't I?" He shook his head and forced a laugh.

I slipped my arm around his shoulders, holding him tight for a comforting, one-armed hug. He smiled against me as he enjoyed it, and as I released him, his attention turned to the quietest of the group as he looked like he was trying to speak.

"I missed you, Buddy," Gregory nearly whispered, but Josh just smiled and put him at ease. Gregory was a bit different since the two men had last seen each other. It was made blatantly clear that Greg's outgoing and wild behavior that led him to be picked as drummer for the band he and Fiona had started, was all due to Joshua's influence.

"You too, Greg. But don't worry, I'm back for good now. Maddie gave me a good hard smack to set me straight," Josh nudged me as I frowned.

"I did no such thing!" I argued defensively as the rest of them laughed a bit. Perhaps we were not the only ones who missed our playful bickering.

Still, Josh's curious gaze lingered on that now meek guy, who played with his fingers a bit and avoided the gaze. With a loud sigh, Josh slung his arm over my shoulders, forcing me to lean down a bit to his height. He nodded a gesture to the rest of them, albeit somewhat reluctantly.

"All right, bring it in," Josh told everyone, and immediately they all rushed in. No one ever had to tell this group twice when a group hug was initiated.

The gang all closed in on us and threw their arms around each other, burying the two of us in the embrace. But even through the mass of musings, cheers and arms, Josh's gaze was on me, and he even so much as cracked a smile. His arm squeezed me tighter as he leaned against me, and I could feel the heat of his body even though others were so near.

I realized it then, the position he had put me in. Here I was on his arm, the same way that Adam had once began to draw us. It made me somewhat sad, but seeing his pleasant expression strangled that uncertainty. I mean, Adam had seen something between us that he liked, that he liked so much he wanted to express to the rest of the world. He just wanted his older brother to be happy, the way he was in that half-colored sketch. And here was Josh, and it had taken him over two years to give Adam exactly what it was that he wanted from him, some joy and self-contentment.

The rest of the gang pulled away before the two of us did, and it seemed in our shared gaze that he knew exactly what I was thinking about. Finally, his arm slipped down my back, running along my spine until he swung it back to himself. I dipped my hands into my rear pockets and swayed on my boots, trying to hide the cheeky, jubilant smile that tried to dare display.

"Well, I suppose a little celebration is in order, then," Emily mentioned as she looked around the group, finding us all in our best moods, "How does dinner sound? All of us together at last."

"I guess I can't get a ride with you this time, Maddie," Zack noticed as he remembered that my truck only sat two, "Do you have room for me, Emily?"

"I'm sure you can squeeze in beside us, Zack. I won't mind Madison stick-shifting between my legs for a little while," Joshua grinned deviously as I stammered and tried to get the blush in my cheeks under control.

"Oh hush, y'little pervert," I told him off, but could not stop the smile that was plastered all over my face.

"Yes, I have room, Zack. Where shall we go, then?" Emily asked, and for a moment, everyone went quiet. I suppose going out for drinks was out of the question, as this was Joshua's first day sober. As usual, Fiona was the first one to screech out an answer.

"Burgers!" She shouted as we flinched, and Josh clicked his jaw like he was trying to pop his ears.

"Meet us there?" Emily agreed as she clapped, nodding as she started stepping towards her car, ushering the others after her.

"The old joint on fourth?" I called after them, and they all agreed readily. It had been one of our favourite places to eat when we used to go to high school together, in fact, it was pretty near to the school itself, "Burgers work for you, honey?" I asked as I put my arm around Josh and led him the very few paces back to the truck.

"Yeah, burgers sound awesome," Josh agreed as he looked up at me with those adorably enticing gray eyes, finally displaying some hope and admiration. He grinned as another few words slipped out, and he nudged against me playfully, "Just promise me your onions and pickles, Maddie."

I pulled him close and kissed him on the cheek, letting my lips linger on his cool skin, which for the first time in months was also graced by the peeking beams of sunlight creeping out from those clouds he must have thought hung above his head, "Always."

It was truly remarkable all that we had put each other through over one measly weekend, which was such an insignificant amount of time compared to our entire relationship together. Joshua Berkeley was far from fixed, but that did not mean he was not better. I may have had to force him into it, but it was clear to me that he was becoming someone stronger than who he once was, even though I thought such a thing was impossible.

e had been so very afraid of changing, maybe because it felt like he would be leaving behind the people who had been the pillars of his life. Well, three of the five. I mean, he had lost his younger brother, his older brother, his father, and, in a very sad way, his twin brother, but I was still right there beside him. And sure, maybe the structure had fallen apart around him, but I was still standing there. And I suppose that was enough.

Something enough to lean on, something enough to support him, something enough to keep him sober. And that was worth every bottle of vodka in the world.

 _ **A/N: Wow, guys. I don't think I could have ended this on any better of a note. I absolutely adore this story. I absolutely adored everything about it.  
**_


	6. Songs on Sunday (Bonus Chapter)

**_A/N: This is a bit of the story I left out for several reasons._**

 ** _Because I wasn't sure if it would interrupt the flow of the story,_**

 ** _Because it involves a bit of music_** **not** ** _written by me, so I wanted to double-check my source,_**

 ** _And because it would have left Josh pantsless for even longer, something that might have been uncomfortable to read._**

 ** _In any case, this story takes place just after the little fiasco that resulted in Josh spilling vodka all over his pants, and Maddie's subsequent cleaning up of the mess._**

 ** _The song featured is inspired by a song titled_** **Love and Epilogues** ** _and all credit for the original piece goes to a lovely lady named Ezreniel. I got permission to include a shorter version of her song so long as I give her due credit (I'm doing that now) as my fanbase is slightly larger than hers._**

 ** _We both hope you enjoy this chapter._**

"Can I, can I show you something, Maddie?" Josh wondered, and he tilted his head towards me on the cushion.

"Anything." I nodded with certainty. All this sudden honesty was more than all right with me.

"Promise you won't laugh?" Joshua Berkeley raised an eyebrow but his expression seemed more nervous than usual, like this was something very dear to him.

"I would never laugh at you, Josh" I told him, finding it almost insulting that he thought I would, though I knew he was just not accustomed to feeling so vulnerable; if I were to laugh at him about it he would be crushed, and he had to protect himself from that.

Josh sat up and looked at me, scanning my eyes for any inconsistency or lies. Finally, he seemed comfortable enough, and he reached out and grabbed my hand, jumping up, "Okay, come with me."

He yanked me to my feet and dragged me after him towards the stairs once more. He didn't bother turning the television off, and to my surprise he didn't bother grabbing the barely-touched bottle of vodka he left on the coffee table. I smiled as I followed him, noticing that his steps for once were actually somewhat sober.

We rounded the corner at the top of the stairs still in a brisk jog, and he pulled me into his bedroom without hesitation. I noticed that it was actually a bit cleaner, like he had pushed the trash off the ground and moved some clothes around. To boot, his bed was actually somewhat made. He had this little yellow notepad sitting on the end of it, and he hurried over there to grab it before I could get a look. He went over to the far end of the bed and looked over at me, slapping the covers twice for me to hurry and sit down.

As I did what I was silently commanded, he pulled over a little wooden chair that had been shoved in the corner last I saw, which no longer held a mound of clothing or trash. He pulled it right up in front of me, so near our legs were almost touching. He squeezed his knees a bit and rubbed his legs a few times, which might have been because he was cold, leaving them bare like that, or because he was nervous. Before he said anything, he looked around on the ground for a replacement pair of pants, which he found by his closet in the form of a pair of blue sweats.

He sat back down in front of me as he finished pulling them on, and again, he just sort of bit his lips and fidgeted. I thought it was mighty cute of him to be all shy for once, but I didn't tell him that. Instead, I leaned forward to capture his eyes in my own, and gave him a supportive smile.

"Josh?" I said his name quietly and received his full attention, all of it forced out towards me in those bright gray eyes, "I'm not gonna force you to do anything, y'know."

"That's not it," he told me, and I noticed then that he was blushing a bit and holding back a larger grin than the smile he displayed, "I've just never really shown anyone this kind of thing, but I don't feel like I have to, it's like, I really, really want to. I want to show it, and I want to show it to you, only you."

"Well then what's stoppin' you?" I returned his smile as I sat back up, patiently waiting for whatever it was.

"Nothing, you're right," he resolved himself as he slapped his legs once lightly, turning around suddenly and pulling something out from behind the chair, which I hadn't really noticed leaning up against the dresser.

I blinked as I recognized the instrument, a familiar old thing in a big black case, which he readily popped open, "Your guitar? I thought you haven't even touched that thing in years."

"I haven't really, but once in a while, I get a thought about something, and so I jot it down," Josh said as he put the case down and let his fingers run over the nicely finished wood, "When I woke up today, I kinda felt, I don't know, motivated. I've been working on this, this song for a long time. And I finished it this morning. Just, just don't laugh, okay?"

"I won't," I swore as I put my hand over my heart.

"It's still pretty rough," he felt the need to defend himself or something, but the more he did the more my smile grew, "I'm not too good with rhymes and tunes and stuff, and it's not perfect or anything, but I just—"

"Josh," I reached over and put my hand on his leg, stopping him mid sentence and snatching his attention in one move, "Just play. I wanna hear it."

"Okay, okay. Um," he pursed his lips as he checked the tuning of the strings, and he worked up the courage to get going, "Here goes."

Josh cleared his throat two or three times as he settled down, his breath shaky and anxious. Finally, his right hand moved at once and fell into a rhythm, the strumming clear and charming in his fingers. As his confidence grew, the chords rang out louder. He took a slow and uneasy breath, starting the words out quietly before he got used to the sound of his voice.

 _""It was a day like any day_

 _when you were on my lips, but never saw,_

 _Neither of us, when strike it may,_

 _Be it something such as love or epilogues._

 _I don't have much left any more,_

 _And this big house seems so empty_

 _but it's stuffed up to shingles with silence_

 _and memories I should forget to get me by._

 _And now those people I called friends,_

 _Who used to think that I was strong,_

 _Seem to have found that there's an end_

 _and all those premises were wrong._

 _I don't know how to make this seem profound,_

 _So I'll buy another bottle, baby,_

 _When they stop coming around._

 _Faces come and go,_

 _And sight seems fickle to the eyes_

 _because we change before we see it_

 _and those pictures seem like lies._

 _I can try to make this sound profound,_

 _But I'll buy another bottle, baby,_

 _When they're no longer around._

 _I was the smartest kid in school,_

 _I thought it mattered to be cool_

 _I know that no one thinks of me_

 _as someone who's got anything figured out_

 _and surely there's some truth in that_

 _'cause here I am just singing songs about the past._

 _But baby, someone's got their eyes on me,_

 _Somebody's looking in,_

 _And she is banging on my door_

 _and taking the poison from my hands._

 _I'm hoping you might think that I'm profound,_

 _Cause I can't buy another bottle, baby,_

 _If you keep coming around._

 _No, I won't buy another bottle, baby,_

 _If you keep coming around.""_

I sat in silence for a moment, watching his head drop down bashfully. He ended the song abruptly, stopping the vibrating chords in his hand. He didn't look at me; he was too intent on looking at his bare toes digging into the rug at his feet. I could not stop smiling, my eyes and heart entirely drawn to him.

"I'm speechless," I said at last, shaking my head in reverence as he checked my expression, to figure it out, "Honey, that was incredible. I never knew you could write like that."

"You're just saying that," he murmured self-consciously, and I snapped back readily, determined to show him just how much I actually loved it.

"I'm not! Joshua, that was, that was," I searched for words but fell flat, staring into his brilliant eyes. I wished that I could show him more honestly and tellingly how he made me feel as he sang, but the only idea that came to my mind was to return that kiss he had lent me earlier. I couldn't explain why that sort of thing was on my mind, but I settled for borrowing a word from his vocabulary instead, "Awesome."

I moved forward and embraced him suddenly, holding him firmly against me as I pressed my face into the crook of his neck. At first, he didn't seem to know how to respond, but as I held on longer he returned the hug. The guitar shifted between us a bit, but I didn't mind. I felt him rub against me and I hummed lightly, enjoying the contact with my best friend. We pulled away simultaneously and our eyes met in the middle, crooked smiles mirroring each other just the same.

 _ **A/N: Well, I hope you enjoyed this. It was really fun to write and made me keel over with d'awwss for**_ **days** ** _. Ezreniel hopes you enjoy her song, and I hope you did too. We collab'd a little on it; let us know what ya think?_**


	7. A Starry Encounter

_**A/N: Okay everyone! Another bonus chapter for**_ **I Will Try to Fix You** ** _! Josh finally feels comfortable visiting Maddie's home. He's still in the process of cleaning up and selling his house, but there's nothing that can keep him away for long. This chapter has taken a long time to write, and you'll see why._**

 ** _Keeping everything Rated T is so hard for this story, with the both of them being so old and all. But I shall do my best. A little backstory. It's been a few weeks since the conclusion of the story. Josh fixed up his father's motorcycle (left in the garage for years - even before the accident - and now drives that as often as he can. He's found it helps to outrun monsters better than a car._**

 ** _Josh finally arrived at the farmhouse, but due to the rain his clothes were soaked through. As such, he is now wearing Mark's clothing._**

 ** _Sit back, relax, and grab a snack and a friend, because the show, is about to start!_**

I tied the straps of the overalls around my waist, bothered by the looseness on my shoulders. I had grumbled the whole way down the stairs of course, upset that my anticipated moment had been ruined, but pushed all those disappointments behind me as I walked into her dining room. I remembered that room well, I had been over to her house for dinner plenty of times before, especially right after my parents died. Her Granny wouldn't have me starving or anything.

I nervously fidgeted as we entered the room, finding it somewhat strange to be there when I had so much on my mind, even more strange when I realized I hadn't seen her family in what must have been at least three years. Maddie directed me over to the table and pulled up one of the spare chairs they had for when family was over. She put the chair right next to her own and gestured for me to come and sit down.

"Well, if ma ol' eyes ain't deceivin' me," Granny Stallanos' old shaky voice had hardly changed, and I looked over at her as she pushed her walker into the room, moseying slowly due to her bad hip, "I'd know that gold-brown-noggin in the dead of night. Joshua Berkeley, come over here an' give Granny a hug!"

"Heya Granny," I politely replied and did as I was told. I hadn't hugged the old coot in a good long time, and while I had grown she had seemed to shrink into this bony, shaking old woman. She did not let her age or size deter her though, as she went right ahead and smacked me on the back of the head, "Ouch!"

"Why ain't cha been visitin', y'forgetful whipper-snapper? My grandbaby's been cooped up all lonesome for—" Granny began to babble in that heavy accent of hers until she was stopped.

"Granny!" Maddie interrupted her with embarrassment on her face, as she went around the table and pulled out the chair for her elder, "Josh just got over that bad accident, I told you that. He's real busy."

"I reckon y'did, but that don't mean y'can't stop in for a visit now n'then," Granny Smith pulled herself over to the chair and wobbly sat herself down, pushing her walker to the side of the table, "Siddown already, Mark's made one fine stew up."

"I can smell it," Maddie replied as she returned to her seat, watching me grumble and follow after.

"She hit me," I murmured as I rubbed the still sore spot on my head, and Maddie just chuckled at my childishness.

Annie Stallanos, Maddie's younger sister, came running into the room next, skipping about until Granny told her she was going to break something. She had started talking right away about her friends at school, and damn could that girl talk. I could hardly keep up, she was going on about some career day thing and how she and her friends were going around trying everything to see what they were good at. I think I even heard something about zip lining.

Mark came in with this huge, tall pot of stew and put it in the middle of the table. It was bubbling and steaming and smelled awesome, but I knew better than to jump up and grab some; there were rules in this house. Maddie stood up and served everyone their share, starting with Granny and Annie, then coming around to me.

I almost forgot just how warm and tasty the Stallanos family home-made dinners were. By the time I realized that I was just about finished the stew, I had almost completely forgotten what had brought me there in the first place, all that serious crap. I glanced at Maddie again, noticing the simple smile that played with her lips and shifted her freckles as she listened to her sister go on.

"—And Scout jus'got this mot'rized scooter, it's the coolest!" I tuned back in to the conversation as I brought another spoonful of stew to my mouth. "She's been wantin' one ever since she saw Josh ride up on his motorcycle, oh Mark did you see it?"

"Eeyup," Mark replied simply as he took a sip of water, smiling at the way Annie got when she was excited.

"A motor-m'cycle? What in the heck is that?" Granny Stallanos asked as her spoon-holding hand shook against her bowl, "Sounds like'a death trap."

"Don't worry Granny, Josh rides real safe," Maddie confirmed with a nod, glancing over at me to be certain she was right on that, "Not that I've ever been on it myself."

"Really?" I thought about it for a second, sipping at my spoonful as I tried to remember if I had taken her on it with me. Truth was, I only ever once gave someone a lift, and that was Emily, and she was screaming the whole time and crying for me to let her off even if it meant she'd be late for her shift at the animal shelter, "You're right."

"Maybe you'll have to take me for a ride sometime," Maddie said, and it sounded completely innocent, but her movements contradicted that.

I felt her foot touch mine, and at first I thought it was just a mistake, until she started running it up my leg. I nearly choked when I realized she was flirting with me, and I hurriedly tried to drown my blush by drinking a mouthful of water. She smirked at me, I saw it from the corner of my eye. Damn it, she was messing with me, the way I had done in front of all our friends. She could be a devil when she wanted to.

"You two sure are growin' up fast, I'll tell y'that much," Granny Stallanos spoke up again, and we both looked over at her, "I r'member when you two were youngin's, 'bout th'same age as Annie, y'all came in for supper all covered in mud and arguin'. Mark and I had to hose y'down before we'd letcha in the house, y'all were shiverin' and shakin' and your clothes were all soakin' wet, you kids were always tryin' my patience."

"I remember," Maddie laughed lightly, but that story did not stop the under-the-table advances as she looped to the inside of my leg and rubbed my ankle and above, teasing me silly, "Mark gave Josh this big ol' shirt to wear, went right down to his knees."

"Uh, yeah," I spoke up in agreement despite my mind being entirely elsewhere.

"It's hard t'believe that ma sister was ever ir'isponsible!" Annie called out with a big grin, sitting up in her chair.

"Oh, she was a handful," Mark chuckled lowly, his voice quite a contrast to the feminine voice of Annie. Indeed, Mark and Maddie had spent a long time trying to correct their Southern/Country mannerisms; as a way to not stand out too much as children. Mark had covered his up by refraining from speaking more than a sentence at a time, most times less than that.

Thankfully, they'd realized their folly and had instilled in Annie the confidence and appreciation of her heritage to not care what others thought of her accent. In regards to pitch, Maddie seemed to nestle right in between their tones nicely, it was funny. "Her and Mister Josh were always gettin' into trouble and foolin' around."

"That certainly hasn't changed," I muttered quietly, and Maddie shot me a silencing glare as she noticed the innuendo between the lines.

"Annie, you mind clearin' the dishes tonight?" Mark asked as he stood up and reached for the large pot, which was far too big for the little girl to have carried.

"It's always ma turn," she pouted but obliged, hopping off the wooden chair and gathering some dishes from around the table somewhat clumsily.

Maddie took my finished bowl and handed it to the young girl, who leaned well over the table on her tip-toes to reach it. My clothes were probably almost dry by now, since they were the only things in the dryer and all, but I didn't care to check. I watched Maddie finish cleaning the table while her younger sister started doing the dishes, waiting for her to be mine again.

My heart was pounding as I watched her lean over the table with a wash cloth, and even though Mark was around I could not restrain myself from leering at her. If he did notice he didn't say anything about it, he was a man of few words anyway.

Maddie glanced up at me from leaning over the wooden table and paused in her circular scrubbing, meeting my eyes. There was something curious about them, something intriguing and pulling, and she stood back up. She must have remembered that we had more to discuss, and she bunched up the rag she was carrying. She barely dipped into the kitchen as she tossed the rag towards the sink, before she came back around and gestured for me to follow her.

I tried to seem casual as I stuck my hands into the pockets of the overalls I was wearing, feeling the fabric that had once hugged her so tightly. My eyes flickered up to her as I followed her up the stairs, and swayed with her hips as she stepped up the creaky wooden stairs. Damn, I was so awfully perverted, but even realizing that did not stop me from looking. She stepped onto the second floor and let her fingers slide along the support bar, making her way to her own bedroom door and tapping it open farther.

"All right, Josh," She held the door open as I walked past her, and she closed it up tight right behind me, "I'm all yours," and those words were just what I wanted to hear.

We spoke for a long time about our feelings for each other; something we'd kind of just...let happen and go unaddressed for weeks. Now that we put it into words, we realized how much of a disservice we'd done each other.

"But when I went over to your house again after all that time apart, and despite that it wasn't entirely fun all the time, that a lot of different things hung in the balance, I felt really good. And then, well then you kissed me," she smiled as the memory came back, and she seemed genuinely content, "It scared me so much because it didn't feel wrong, or weird or anything, in fact, it excited me."

"Well clearly you realized that it did the same for me," I reminded her, moving a bit closer and laying down beside her.

"Sure, but besides the fact that I haven't got squat for knowledge about how to deal with romantic stuff, I was afraid for awhile that you were just screwing around, playing a game or something. Or that you'd get bored of me, I couldn't risk our bond over silly games, Joshua. You mean a lot to me," she told me honestly, and it sounded good to hear.

"But it's not a game to me, Maddie!" I defended myself vigilantly, making certain she was looking at me so she would know I was not playing around, "Ever since we were kids, it's always been you. Always, always."

Maddie smiled again, this simple, crooked smile that I knew her by, exposing a sweet dimple that was usually unnoticeable under her freckles. It was comfortable with her, even if the moment was tense and the subject was awkward and potentially devastating. Her eyes flickered up to mine like sparks, and I could feel her energy and love in them, embracing me as she spoke.

"I dunno much about romantic love, Josh. But I know that I like it when you're around, you get me all hot and bothered and happy and stuff. And when you kiss me, it drives me wild," Maddie's smile broke into a grin as she confessed, and she reached over to ruffle my unruly hair,"I dunno how to say it any better than you did, but Josh, I know I have feelings for you, too."

"You better not just be saying that," I made double sure, looking right into her eyes to search for any lies. I could feel my heart in my throat, and almost felt like crying, for Pete's sake.

"I'm not," Maddie turned to fully face me, and if I did not believe her already, her gaze made it impossible to doubt her.

She moved just that few inches closer and pressed her lips on mine, a simple and honest kiss that was so completely her. I returned it readily, feeling the excitement building up in my entire body. Her hand touched my waist and pulled me closer, encircling my form and holding me still. I couldn't help it, and I broke the kiss suddenly.

"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh," I breathed like a damn girl, and then I grinned and nearly did a back-flip, though Maddie's expression was not quite so stoked.

"What? I'm not doin' it wrong, am I?" She asked curiously, sitting up on her elbow as she watched me, but the question sent me into a fit of giggles. She blinked and made a concerned face, clearly self-conscious about everything.

"No, no, you're great," I affirmed her with nods, but could not bite back the grinning. She continued to watch me as I sprawled out onto my back and sighed in contentment, "It's just, this doesn't even feel real. It's like I'm floating or flying or some shit."

"Be still my beating heart, you are a charmer, aren't cha?" Maddie chuckled sarcastically at my unimaginative choice of words, but I didn't care. She seemed to though, as she fell quiet for a few seconds before speaking in a softer tone, "Josh, do you think this is okay? I mean, should we be doin' this?"

"What kind of a question is that?" I asked as I flipped onto my side, mirroring her own position and leaning on my elbow. I pouted my lips a bit, "We aren't doing anything."

"No, I suppose not," Maddie chewed on her cheek again as she looked at me, letting herself inspect that which had become hers. She seemed a little unsure.

"Come here, let me show you something," I commanded, never waiting for any obedience.

"Excuse me? If I'm not mistaken, this is my house, what could you possibly—" I pulled her off the bed into a full sprint, knocking open her door and sprinting down the stairs. She could barely catch her breath, much less find a word, and I guided her all the way to the front door, nearly throwing it open, "Joshua! Where are you taking me? It's dark out!"

"I know, it's perfect!" I called back as I dragged her faster, though she resisted me long enough to close the front door behind her.

We weren't wearing any shoes, and the gravel kind of hurt my feet, but Maddie didn't complain. When we were kids we used to run barefoot everywhere, and it never bothered us back then when our feet were accustomed to it. We touched dried grass and hay soon enough as we came upon the old barn, which didn't look like it was used for much more than storage. Still she followed me with this inquisitive, uncertain look, as I fumbled around in the darkness for the ladder that led to the loft above.

"Keep up, will you?" I winked at her as I started up the ladder, and she followed me only one step behind.

The ladder was dusty on my hands from lack of use, but I did not hesitate until I reached the top, only pausing once I climbed onto the wooden floor and wiped my hands on those overalls. It looked exactly the same as ever, complete with one folded up blanket and one pillow placed near the edge. The slivers of light from the moon caught the particles of dust that were suspended in the air from my intrusion, shining down in breaks and cracks of the walls and roof. I moved out of the way as Maddie reached the top of the ladder and peered around, taking in the dark scene just as I did. I helped her to her feet and watched as she patted her dirtied hands on the rear of her jeans, huffing a laugh as she recognized the loft.

"I can't believe you remember this place, Josh" Maddie shook her head as she stepped forwards, almost too tall to stand upright under the sloping roof. "What's it been? Must be years since we've been up here."

"How could I forget? It was early autumn, if I remember right. I was over one evening, and you woke me up in the middle of the night and yanked me out of bed to see a harvest moon, even though I had no idea what that was," I reminded her coolly as I spun around on the creaking floorboards, looking for the particular spot of the roof I had in mind. "You said the view from your window wasn't good enough, and—"

"You asked me how the inside of a barn could be much better," Maddie finished for me, a smile creeping up on her as she realized why I was reaching up to the rafters and poking around.

"And what's this? Practical Maddie never repaired the leaky old barn roof, now did she? She opted for a skylight instead, something she never told even her family," I found the hatch and unlatched it, pulling it down into the barn to reveal the clear night sky above us. I smirked as I put my hands on my hips under the glowing light and watched her walk right up beside me to see the stars, "Miss truth and honesty, keeping a secret all to herself."

"I told you, didn't I?" Maddie countered as she glanced over at me, quirking a brow under the moonlight.

"Exactly!" I extended my arms out to either side, and watched her smug expression fall a bit in confusion. "Before you even knew about how I felt, before I kissed you, before any of that, you had shared something so personal and special with me," I stepped towards her and put my arms around her waist, holding her near, "I'd like to think you've had feelings for me for a long time."

"You're full of something, Josh," she chuckled that cute little Maddie laugh and bowed her head a bit, but she did not have her cowboy had to hide her eyes this time.

"Maybe I am," I shrugged as I leaned lower to catch her eyes, before putting my finger under her chin and raising it so she would look at me, "but I really don't give a dam. All I care about is you, me..." I broke away from her for an instant grabbing the blanket and shaking it out before laying it down below the open hatch in the roof, "and a little nostalgia."

"Shucks, honey, who'd have thought you could be so sickly sweet?" Maddie titled me endearingly and followed me willingly, brushing the blanket flat as she sat below the falling starlight, while I grabbed that pillow and brought it over.

I placed the pillow behind her back and crawled up beside her, watching intently as she laid back against the plush fabric. I could not stop my erratic heart beat, my spinning mind and awfully impure thoughts as she moved around until she got comfortable. I laid right next to her, but instead of looking up through the hatch at the night sky, I was looking right at Maddie.

For the time being I didn't really care how strong I was coming on. I was tucked up real close to her and was focused on watching her, despite the twinkling sky above. She shuffled around as if it made her uncomfortable, but that just made her all the more adorable to watch. I still couldn't believe it, here I was laying beside the woman I loved, and she was not pushing me away. The pressures of all the naughty things I had thought about doing to her over the years seemed to lift, leaving me with peace and serenity. So of course, I had to push the limits of that.

I leaned in and kissed her on the cheek, feeling her turn and take notice of the action. I didn't hesitate to move along, playing with the collar of her shirt in my hand and nibbling at her ear. She was tense and uncertain about letting me doing these things, but she seemed to reservedly enjoy the attention.

I moved closer until my leg slipped in between hers, noticing the nervous grunt she made as I played around with her boundaries. My lips found hers in the darkness and I could feel her kissing me back, but she was still so very tense. I would have to do that out of her, you see, so I ran my hand along her body, moving back to her chest and inching up to her breasts. I didn't even get to touch one by the time she pulled back, sitting upright and shielding herself.

"You okay?" I asked as I sat up beside her, alarmed by her defensiveness. She didn't look at me in the eyes, but I could tell she wanted to, "Maddie, relax, all right? It's just me, just Joshua, your best friend, remember?"

She sighed slowly as she looked at the wrinkled in the blanket beneath us, "Sorry," Maddie murmured to the floor in a low tone, nervously fidgeting under my attention.

"Don't be, we don't have to do anything you don't want to, you know," I told her with my eyes and my words, holding the eye contact long past when she broke it.

"It's not like I don't like it. It's just, I just dunno what to do, or what to let you do," she implied something subtly as she breathed an easier breath, bringing her head back up as the topic was addressed.

I smiled, knowing enough about her to have seen her initial resistance coming. She was too responsible and cautious for her own good sometimes. I pulled myself up and moved in front of her, kneeling one knee in between her legs as I did.

"I'll make it easy for you, Maddie. If you don't like what's going on..." I was considerate with her then, easing her onto her back once more and looking deep into her eyes, "just tell me to stop."

I leaned over her, holding my weight on my right arm that pressed into the blanket beside her. I moved up a bit until our faces were near, and I watched her regard me anxiously. She didn't move away this time though, she watched as I moved my free hand up her body and paused over her chest, which was pounding hard and rising with each heavy breath. Her hands reached up and clasped my own in both of hers, cold and shaky and uncertain.

This contact was different than our usual touching, it was not rough or playful or friendly, it was a touch that we both knew was gentle and comforting and intimate. My usual brimming lust was suddenly not as important as just being with her, just touching her and looking at her the same as I always did. There was a strong pull between us and I leaned in, pressing our lips together in a tender and telling embrace.

I always imagined my first mutual interaction with Maddie would be forceful and heated, the way we always were with each other. But this felt so much more real, so genuine and honest. And I was pleased to let to go on slowly. I pulled barely away and touched my forehead to hers, our eyes still closed and our lips still humming. Gods, this must have been the best moment of my life.

I let my body rest against hers at our hips, my thigh delicately laid between hers. She leaned up and kissed me again, gripping my hand once tightly before releasing it to peruse the messy strands of my hair. She pushed it back as she got a feel of it, her fingers tracing my neck and shoulders. I felt myself suddenly heat up at the attention, overindulging in her body the way I always wished I could.

Our kissing grew more and more fervent, and I could feel her hands all over me the way mine seemed to find her. It was quiet at first, but before I knew it the blood pounding in my ears and the growing weight of our warm breaths filled the space around us well.

My hand set to work loosening the buttons on her shirt, feeling the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest beneath. Her mouth opened against mine as she groaned a bit in frustration, rising up against my touch. We both moved against each other in little refined squirms, trying to get even closer as if it were possible. She squeezed her legs around mine lightly, trying to keep from grinding against me like I knew she wanted to do.

Our legs entwined below us, pressing each other in just the right areas as if it was second nature. I bit lovingly at her lower lip until she complied to my unspoken command, allowing my tongue to breach the barrier of her mouth. My chest rubbed against her breasts unintentionally, a hazard of such close quarters and laboured breathing, but it was more than all right. I barely pulled away to get a full reading on just how wet our mouths were, the saliva thick and her lips gleaming in the starlight.

We both gave each other everything we had that night, getting lost in the amazing feel that was the other. We were adults now, technically, and somehow it felt right to enter adulthood the same way we'd left childhood; together. It was very quiet then, the only sound of life being our intense and heavy breathing, which steamed and heated up the barn and made me rather glad I was naked.

Maddie's hands reversed my hold and pulled me down, putting my weight onto my hands and knees again as she leaned up and grabbed me roughly. One of her hands wrapped behind my head and dug into my hair, the other played coy and calm on my cheek as she drew me in for a much desired kiss. I felt so close to her, so accepted and loved, it was everything I thought it would be. It was just too bad that the world outside of the barn was so cold.

I embraced her warmly and continued to kiss her, showing her just how much all of this meant to me with each peck and slip of my tongue. She was so very gentle as she helped me off of her, laying me beside her instead in a more relaxing manner. I didn't leave her side though, I nestled right in close despite the fact that I was sweating profusely. Maddie didn't seem to mind, she held me there near to her like she would never let me go. Her fingers brushed loose strands of hair out of my face and she looked me right in the eyes, seeming just as infatuated as I was.

"Y'okay?" Maddie's voice was hoarse and hushed, but all I could really do was nod and smile, "For an athlete, you sure run outta breath pretty quick," she teased playfully as she inched closer, her feet touching mine.

"Sheesh," I reached out and hit her lightly, faking a pout, "You trying to pick a fight?"

"Maybe," Maddie whispered as she leaned in and kissed me again, something so intimate and precious disguised as something so simple. It had become quite apparent that she seemed to enjoy kissing me, and hey, I was not about to complain.

I laid onto my back and sighed, feeling all the stress and trouble exit my body in one joyous motion. The stars above me gratefully took all my worries away, replacing them with bright little specks of lights so beautiful I hardly noticed the darkness at all. I felt Maddie move closer and snuggle against me, placing her head on my shoulder and letting me put my arm around her.

Lying there naked with the woman I loved beneath the wonderful night sky, it was heaven, heaven in an old barn loft. We were both comfortable in the silence, our bodies pieced together and our aggressions finally worked out.

"I almost wish I had made the hatch a bit bigger," Maddie spoke up, and her voice was so small I wasn't sure it even carried to the rafters. "It's still pretty hot in here and the roof isn't much to look at."

It was true, outside of the barn would have been much crisper and breezier, but though the stars would be so beautiful, they would pale in comparison to what I just experienced.

"Say, Maddie..." An idea emerged in the looming darkness, and looked down at the girl in my arms, "Were you just kidding about wanting to ride with me earlier?"

"Excuse me?" she inquired as her eyebrows furrowed, and I noticed that little wrinkle that Fiona had spoken of.

"On my motorcycle, I have an extra helmet you know. I could take you out," I told her, growing to like the idea more with each word. Especially when she gave me that uncertain but hopeful expression, "The lights of the city are fantastic at night, you'd love it."

"I dunno Josh, my legs are still all tingly," Maddie chuckled as she addressed such a thing, but I consoled her easily.

"You don't have to do anything but wrap them around me, babe," I grinned and nudged her with a playful wink, drawing her chuckle out into a full laugh. She nudged me back and nodded slowly.

"Well, in that case, I reckon I might have to take you up on that. If you don't think it'll be too sappy or romantic or anything," Maddie's eyes jumped up into my own and I watched the rosiness in her cheeks darken to try and imitate the lush crimson of her lips.

"I think it'll be the perfect amount," I kissed her lightly before I squirmed out of her comforting embrace and pushed her a bit onto her side. "Now, get up." I grinned deviantly and smacked her rear twice to get her moving.

"Hey!" she complained as she rolled onto her stomach, lifting herself onto her hands and knees with an irritable expression. I laughed at her embarrassment and helped gather our clothes back up.

I tossed her jeans her way, and though she groaned to have to get back up, which was very unlike her since she was always such a workaholic and never one to whine, she got dressed and tried to straighten herself back up nice. I was quicker about it, excited for our little adventure. I took her hands in my own and led her to the edge of the loft in something of a goofy dance, causing her to giggle and shake her head at my ridiculous antics.

I stepped back suddenly despite her shocked expression and landed on the first step down the ladder, making her roll her eyes and push me to keep going folded up the now wet blanket and stored it away once more and shut the hatch before finally coming down after me.

While she climbed back down I crept into her house again, knowing riding a motorcycle in loose fitting overalls was not the smartest idea. I got back into my own clothes, which were still warm from the dryer despite having sat in there for a good while after it had finished tumbling around.

I grabbed my gray jacket from the rack and put my shoes on as quietly as I could, not trying to attract attention to myself from her family. When I opened her front door again I found her sitting on the wooden steps with her own jacket on, adjusting her cowboy boots on her feet and extending her legs to have a look at them.

"I guess it's not weird now if I tell you that you look really sexy in those," I told her bluntly as I closed her front door behind her, admiring her as she pulled herself onto those raised heels once more.

"Do you ever quit?" Maddie asked as she leaned in and flicked my nose lightly, causing me to twitch it about and make a face.

"We wouldn't be here now if I did," I reminded her with a smirk.

We went over to my parked motorcycle and she waited patiently as I popped open the under seat storage and revealed my second helmet, which I brought along just in case I ever needed it. I passed it into her waiting hands before I pulled on my gloves, wriggling my fingers out the open ends of each hole. I turned back and looked at her, watching the way she tucked her hair under the helmet and buckled it under her chin.

"A helmet doesn't really suit you as well as your Stetson, Mads," I teased with a playful wink.

"Oh hush," she stuck out her tongue as she grabbed my own helmet and roughly shoved it into my hands, gesturing for me to hurry up.

I slipped the helmet over my wild hair and adjusted it to fit just right, tilting my head to either side leisurely as if testing her patience. She said nothing as I pulled the goggles over the back of the helmet and placed them just above my eyes, leaving them off while I slipped one leg over the vehicle.

I kicked backwards and knocked it off the kickstand with ease, stepping backwards slowly as I reversed it out of its position so it would be easier for Maddie to jump on behind me. I turned it to face the driveway and roughly revved it up, turning it on with a great vicious and fierce roar that must have been heard all over the farm.

"Hop on, cowgirl," I grinned as I looked back at her, finding her expression a daring mirror of my own. She stepped wide and slung her leg over the motorcycle, straddling the mechanical contraption right behind me, nestling up close until I fit perfectly between her legs, "Maybe we can head on over to my place and continue where we left off?" I jested as she smacked my shoulder lightly and moved against me, her hands fondling my fitting jacket.

"Just drive, hot stuff," Maddie said into my ear as her arms wrapped close around me, and I could feel her chest pressing up against my back. Her arms were tight around my waist, and I was sure she did that on purpose.

I did as I was told, hitting sixty in ten seconds flat and racing down her old dirt road. She squeezed on tight due to her initial fear and shock, but I was a good driver so I wouldn't let anything happen to her. The wind that was grinding against my body and suspending us in motion was flawless, though deafening. As we drove on, her hands eased up a bit and she even leaned back off of me, getting a good look around while we road across the countryside.

The city lights were gorgeous as we came over the last hill, the skyline shimmering like a painting despite the lack of stand-off high rises. It was no Manhattan, or at least no Manhattan from what I had seen in pictures or what Maddie told me from the once or twice she had visited her aunt and uncle there. But still, the roads were mostly empty and it seemed we had the whole night to ourselves, all the views and lights twirling around us like a dream.

I was by no means reckless, especially at night with such precious cargo, but I did tease her with speed once or twice to make her grip back on. Her hands played with my still aroused body the whole while, but the distraction was not too much for me to handle. As I took off along the straight, vacant streets, I could see the lights for a mile light up green and illuminate our path. Everything seemed so much more exciting and lively when she was there with me, and I could not hide this great big smile I had plastered on my face the whole time.

I loved the way she felt wrapped all around me, so much that I barely even registered the blinding lights that raced towards us, or the crushing impact that threw us off the motorcycle.

 ** _A/N: And so begins a little side-story for all you who can't get enough of this. Since I love you all so much, I've decided to make this_** **two** ** _chapters instead of one._**

 ** _I have_** **no** ** _idea when the second will be finished! None at all! As always, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and if so, please review? It makes my frozen heart glow._**


	8. The Curveball

**_A/N: Once again, big thanks to everyone for so much support! It means a lot. Thank you_ THE GIRL 9713 _for your glowing reviews. I think from this chapter on I'll focus more on Josh's time in camp. I don't know, I'll need to do a lot of thinking and typing to get that sorted out._  
**

 ** _Sit back, relax, and grab a snack and a friend, because the show, is about to start._**

 _Beep._

 _Beep._

 _Beep._

There was a space between each horribly annoying shrill, digital noise. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized it didn't sound a thing like my alarm clock. My eyes cracked open barely, but they were still so very tired. I wanted to roll over and hit the snooze button, but my body was not reacting the way it usually did. Everything felt backwards or slow or heavy, and the more I reached about beside me the more I realized I couldn't find that damn alarm clock to hit it off. Something was pulling at my arm and hurting as I reached around, restraining me and everything, and then the alarm clock got louder and more annoying.

 _Beep, Beep!_

 _Beep Beep Beep!_

"Joshua, calm down, you have to calm down!" there was a distant voice, but I could not make it out or put a face to it. I listened to it anyway, and slowly the beeping became just background noise.

"What the..." My eyes opened and closed, and everything was way too bright to look at. I blinked again as I touched my face, trying to get my vision clear. "Maddie..." her name was on my lips as always, and I muttered it in and out of consciousness. "Where's Maddie?"

"Josh, it's me, it's Zack. Greg is here, too," I was glad he introduced himself, because I could not have placed the voice through the ringing of my ears and the pathetic groaning I made as I tried to adjust to this uncomfortable thing I was laying on.

"What are you doing here?" I groaned out as I finally got to see some of what was going on. I was laying on this long, white bed, and everything around me was so freaking bright and white. I squinted to see their faces as they came into view, but theirs were not the faces I wanted to see. "Where's Maddie? She getting a soda or something? That's so like her, being gone when I wake up." There was just silence as I tried to piece together the circumstances, when I realized that I did not know what exactly I was waking up from. Zack and Greg glanced nervously at each other but still said nothing. "Wait, where am I? Why's it so damn bright?"

"You're, um, you're in the hospital, Josh," Greg squeaked out as he bit at his lip and played with the long hair hanging just passed his ears, wincing as if I was going to lash out at him or something.

"What am I doing in the..." I trailed off as it came back to me, the barn, the moonlight, the stars, the green lights, the blinding headlights. "Goddamn it!" I swore as I cringed at the familiar brightness of the fluorescent lights above me, remembering how quickly lights had come at me before.

"Please, just..." Greg's meek voice didn't even come close to reaching me, but I jerked in pain and turned towards the two of them seriously.

"Where's Maddie? She was right behind me, she was..." I remembered the feeling of her warm arms around my waist, the sound of her laughter, the taste of her lips. "Where is she?! Maddie! Madison Stallanos, where the fuck are you!" I shouted until Zack and Greg calmed me down with gestures and shushing.

"Joshua, you have to stay still," Zack told me matter-of-factly like he was trying to keep objective, but I shrugged off his advice and kept on prying.

"You're avoiding the subject, so what is it? How bad is it? Is she—?" I couldn't even say it, my throat contracted and I nearly choked on the idea, my eyes desperately grasping at my friends for answers.

"It's okay, Josh, she...well, she's alive," Zack told me, but there was something else. I could hear it in his voice, I could see it on his face, something was troubling him, "You're both lucky to be alive."

"Don't fuck with me, Parker," I glowered, moving the blankets as if to try and get up, but I found the needle and tube in my arm rather bothersome. I ripped it out and moved the blankets again, realizing I was sitting there in a hospital gown. "I was on my motorcycle, I remember that. I crashed, didn't I? Come on, what are you not telling me?"

"You're right. Listen," Zack's voice fell low as he began to speak, and his face was serious like he was giving some presentation or something. His words were scientific and distant, "You were in a collision with another vehicle. It was bad, it was really bad. You went into cardiac arrest, due to the blood loss, the trauma of the accident, and significant physical damage."

"What does that mean?" I furrowed my brow as I tried to decipher her smart talk, finding her honesty and straight-to-the-point attitude refreshing.

"It means that your heart was not pumping blood through you." His eyes were on mine seriously, and I realized entirely what that entailed. "For a moment, you were pretty much dead, Joshua."

"I was—" My voice was caught in my throat again as I came to terms with it. I cringed as I sat up abruptly, grasping my chest where it hurt. I could feel that something was not right, and it hurt to move and breathe, I realized. "Ugh, what happened to me?"

"You lost a lot of blood, hit your head pretty hard, and I was told there was, was little bits of metal, actually inside of you." Well that sure freaked me out to hear. "The doctors think that most of your injuries were from the accident. Except a couple cracked ribs."

"Cracked ribs?" I repeated, and I felt the pain in my chest as I spoke.

Zack's mouth turned sharply down but she fought back the frown, and fought back the shakiness in her voice, "That was the result of Maddie's incessant CPR. She knelt over you for several minutes, administering CPR long enough for the ambulance to arrive in time to revive you. But you should know that emergency CPR is usually quite ineffective. The chances of you surviving were, well, basically none."

"None?" I blinked stupidly. I didn't remember any of that, and that terrified me. I didn't know much about medical stuff, but Zack definitely seemed to, and something had him really torn up while he explained everything to me. "Where is Maddie?"

Zack tried to hold eye contact, but he found it hard to keep from breaking down entirely, I could tell. Still, I kept staring at him, needing to hear the answer. However, he was not finished with his story.

"She passed out from blood loss on the way to the hospital. Besides the pool of it that had formed around you as she worked to keep you alive, the first responders found her blood all over the motorcycle, in weird places." I gaped at the sound of that, it seemed so awful. And Maddie had endured it all while I had been laying around passed out like dead weight, almost quite literally. But hold on, it got worse, and Zack's expression fell and crumbled into near tears, "They surmised that you had been pinned under it after the accident, and Maddie..." His face contorted into this grotesque and pained expression as she described it with her trembling hands and wavering voice, "The doctor told me she broke her arm in the crash, but she, she—she set the bone back into place, so that she could summon enough strength to p-pull the bike off of you. S-She actually broke the bone into a better place so, so that she—"

"Where is she?" I tried to stop him, though his breath was quick as he tried to hold off the whimpers and cries, his voice getting loud and upset with each new word. I had never seen this side of Zack before.

"A-And she was pounding o-on your chest hundreds of times, with that broken arm, bleeding all over—!" Zack shouted as tears poured down his face, clenching his fists in his lap and hitting his knees with them.

"Zachary! Where is she? Please, tell me where she is!" I desperately called out to get through to him, my own voice faltering; I couldn't stand to listen to this torture any more. It was all one big, horrible nightmare, it had to be.

"She's down the hall, I-I don't know if she's conscious. She kept, kept refusing the morphine and sedation until you came out of surgery and she knew you were okay. She wanted to be awake for it," he told me as Gregory tried to console him, though he himself was falling to bits to hear it told again. "But they wouldn't even let her come and sit by your bedside, she's really broken up, Josh."

"I have to go." I stumbled as I tried to get out of the bed, and Zack and Gregory stood suddenly to attempt to stop me. "I have to see her!"

"Joshua, slow down, you have lost a lot of blood, you're going to—!" Zack tried to tell me, but as I stood I realized my legs were pretty numb and unresponsive. I fell right to the floor and landed ungracefully on my side, cringing at the way my ribs pained me. "Greg, get a wheelchair, will you?"

"I don't need no damn wheelchair," I groaned loudly as I tried to get myself back up, but the pain in my chest was unbearable. Zack helped me back up to the bed and I leaned over in in a hunch, holding my side. "I'm not a freaking cripple."

"It's procedure, Joshua," Zack tried to tell me as Greg returned with the pathetic contraption, and I refused to even look at it. "The hospital staff won't let you just walk around in your condition. You could rip out your stitches or something. It's just policy, and it's safe."

"Yeah, safe really helped me out last time, didn't it?" I snorted as I reluctantly let Gregory help me to the chair. I didn't notice the shock and sadness in their eyes, and continued on, again not noticing as their expressions went back a little to relatively normal, "I wore my damn helmet and everything."

"Come on, you know that a helmet is no guarantee," Zack told me, his voice wavering a little like he was overcoming some sudden shock, as he avoided my gaze, shuffling around as Gregory turned the chair around and pushed me through the door.

"Just take me to her already," I commanded, and I could even hear the pleading in my voice. My chest felt tight as I thought about what she might look like, what I had done to her by taking her out for some wild ride. I even clenched up my eyes in humiliation, feeling utterly guilty and horrible. I gripped at the wheelchair and wanted to start pushing it myself, but it hurt to do much of anything with my arms while my ribs were so tender. "Hurry up."

"Um, y-yes, it's not much farther now," Greg told me as he quickened his step. I continued to grind my teeth, finding the distance still too far to calm my nerves. I reached one arm out and pushed the wheel myself, though it still hurt and had Greg stuttering nervously.

"Joshua?" I heard Emily's voice as she called my name and stood up, I could see her and Fiona by some lounge, getting to their feet as they watched me rush by.

"Faster, Greg, faster!" I nearly yelled at the guy, wanting to be there immediately. Doctors and nurses moved out of the way as we dashed through the hallway, with the rest of our friends hot on our trail.

"I'm trying!" he called out, and I swear he was actually crying as he said it.

Finally he turned suddenly, and the wheelchair screeched to a halt in the narrow doorway of some room, some room that seemed like any other. That is, until I saw her lying there. I said nothing at first, my eyes racing over her bandaged and restrained body worriedly and anxiously. She seemed so weak, so small as she laid there all wrapped up and completely still.

I had horrible flashbacks to the first time I saw Caleb in his dressings and on that damn bed. The first time I realized my twin brother was gone. This time, though...seeing her there I realized that this felt like I was losing them all over again. I'd put them where they rested now, just as I'd done to Maddie. I shouldn't have let myself love her. I did this to her. The last good thing in my life, and I almost killed her.

Her family sat and stood around her, watching her limp form as she let breaths in and out slowly. Before I said anything, Maddie turned her head and looked at me, and I swear her glistening eyes reflected every light in the whole damn room they were so watery and sad. Her lips though, they curved into a relieved smile as she saw me.

"Hey you," Maddie spoke, her voice so gentle and adoring I nearly burst into tears right then and there. She broke the contact to address the other few in the room, her family to be specific, "Y'all wanna give us a minute, here?"

"Eeyup," Mark agreed as he helped Granny Stallanos to her feet, directing Annie away from her older sister's bedside and towards the door. Greg pushed me into the room so the Stallanos family could get past, and though they all glanced over at me as left, I could not meet a single one of their gazes.

I pushed my own wheels as I approached her, though Greg tried to help me along. I pulled up right next to her bedside and traced her once over, that fit and attractive body I had once taken for myself now broken and wounded. I was on her right side, and looked down at the hardened exterior of a cast that the doctors had wrapped around her arm.

She was looking at it too, lovingly but with such, such sorrow. Our friends had caught up by now, but they did not come into the room. They just stood at the door and watched, letting Greg duck out nervously to join them without uttering a word to Maddie.

"Y'look like hell," Maddie said to me as her eyes met mine, and her weak but cheerful smile hurt me to look at. I avoided her attention and tried to bite back my pitiful whimpering and regret.

"I'm glad you're okay," was all I could manage, and it even sounded forced to my ears. Maddie watched me for a moment before taking in this long and slow breath.

"Joshua, honey," Maddie addressed me personally as she tilted her head, hoping to get my attention. "Look at me, will you? Everyone's sayin' that it'll be fine. Thing is, it don't feel fine." She moved her arm a bit and cringed, the whole thing taped up and held set and still. I felt so awful for putting her through that, but I had to answer her when she asked me, "Tell me the truth, Joshua. How does it look?"

I swallowed the dryness of my mouth, taking another good look at the injury. I'd seen some serious injuries in my past - hell, the injury to my leg was a prime example - and I knew I couldn't lie to her, "It doesn't look good, Mads."

"Right. I know," Maddie nodded vacantly, looking up at the roof without any resentment or anger in her voice, though surely there should have been. "I keep wanting to ask the doc if he thinks I'll be able to pitch again, kinda silly thing to worry about, don't cha think?"

"Not at all," I disagreed, wanting to reach out and console her. But it was not my place, after all, I had been the one to do this to her, to ruin her arm and nearly get her killed.

"I woke up a little while ago after they forced me the meds, I was kicking and screaming something fierce," Maddie laughed and shook her head, but regret did eventually come back into her voice, though it was not directed at my actions at all. "Greg was by my side, but I didn't care who it was at the time. I grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him closer, shouting at him and askig' if you were okay."

Her eyes ran over me fondly the way we both wished her hands could. "He was crying when he said you were still out, and I lost it for a bit until the others ran in and held me down long enough to explain. I didn't get to apologize to him. Will you do that for me, Josh?"

"Jeez, Mads, you make it sound like you're dying on me," I muttered lowly as I fidgeted nervously in the wheelchair.

"I almost did, didn't I?" Maddie asked, but I would not respond. I couldn't. She sighed loudly and leaned over in the bed, reaching over with her good hand and touching my chin, raising it so that I was facing her again. "Look at me, will ya?" She smiled warmly at my troubled expression, and went on easily, "This isn't your fault you know. Zack said the other guy, he ran a red light over a hundred miles per hour. We're lucky to be alive, Josh."

"From what I hear, I'm only alive because of you," I responded, watching the way she blushed a bit and as usual, shrugged off any praise.

"I dunno about that. I was a mess out there, crying and shouting, I was a wreck if I ever called it," Maddie admitted, rubbing the back of her neck with her good arm sheepishly. She kept watching me though, and I could hear the thankfulness in her tone, "I'm just so grateful you're okay. I don't know what I would'a done without you."

"I, I just can't believe I did this," my head fell into my hands and I slammed my eyes shut to keep the tears at bay, feeling so totally horrible and guilty and shit. How could I ever hope to make this up to her? "I mean, everything was so great, and then I wanted to take you out on some stupid, reckless thrill ride, and—"

"Don't you even start with me mister," Maddie snapped at me, and I jerked back out of my pathetic, self-loathing whining to listen to her. "Accidents happen, our luck with coming back out of it, that isn't something to shake a stick at. And just think, if it wasn't us, that guy might have hit a couple of kids who weren't quite so tough, y'know?" She fake-punched my shoulder, though it was abnormally weak, and she struggled to do it right, gripping at the side of the bed to regain her balance.

I smiled despite my watering eyes, loving just everything about her, "You are weirdly optimistic sometimes."

Maddie chuckled a bit as she readjusted herself to lay back more comfortably. Her eyes went soft again, and her voice was nice and easy, "I see it kinda like this, Josh." She turned her head to look at me, her glorious green eyes still capturing mine and shimmering like life itself despite their vicinity to death. "Say I toss ya a curveball."

"A curveball?" I perked up at the familiar baseball term, a kind of pitch I knew well. It struck me then, that one day in our youth, Maddie and I had been star players on the baseball team. In some ways, those days were happier; in others - mainly because Maddie and I hadn't started admitting our feelings to each other - they weren't

"Yeah, say I throw you one hell of a curveball." Maddie nodded, her eyes still fixing on mine as she took in a slow and shaky breath. "At first, it's flying hot, and you're thinking, _Yeah, no problem for me to snag this one._ So you fall into your swing, and for a while you're thinking it's just right, just perfect. But you see, as the ball approaches the plate you realize that it's dipping quite low, hell so low it's hardly even in the strike zone. But you're already in your swing, right, so you can't do anything but adjust it a bit deeper. Now, that is a good analogy, and it isn't a Southernism either, y'hear?"

She laughed lightly and stifled a bit of a cough, picking on herself the way the rest of us usually do about her odd sayings. It really broke me up to see her like that, but she didn't stop speaking to me, consoling me with some weird baseball metaphor. Maddie sat up a bit as she went on, and I was utterly enthralled by her every word and pause.

"Sometimes you're tossed a pitch that seems just fine, till it drops down right at the plate. Thing is Josh, is that there wasn't anybody who was on that old team that had a hit count like yours. I reckon a curveball isn't anything you can't knock right out," Her usual sultry grin melted across her face, and that adorable dimple dipped into her cheek. "So here we are, Josh. And you and I both know how fast you are, and hell, we both know you've rounded home already. So then, what's with all those tears? We still got the rest of the whole game to get through, me and you." She pulled herself up a bit more and spat right onto her palm, causing me to huff this painful laugh and pull this great big smile across my face. "You game?"

I wasn't sure if I was laughing or crying as I did it, but I leaned forward and spat into my own palm, smiling all the while. I reached out, but noticed that she only had her left hand available, making our usual handshake rather awkward. Still, I wrapped my arm around hers, pulling myself closer despite the fact it hurt my ribs to get up so near. I clapped and clasped my hand with hers, our grips strong as ever and our eyes locked in a determined embrace we both knew too well.

"Bet on it," I agreed adamantly.

I pulled myself up even closer despite the way my body cried out in protest, and I relinquished the supportive hold on my side for a loving caress of Maddie's cheek. I leaned my elbow onto her bed to relax my stomach muscles and managed to get close enough to touch her more intimately. My lips greeted hers warmly, kissing her just as freely and passionately as I wanted to.

She responded promptly and eagerly, leaning up to return the kiss with just as much fervency as I displayed. We broke sooner than I would have liked, my injuries preventing me from exploring her mouth again. I groaned a bit as I nearly fell onto her bed, and she laughed whole-heartedly as she held me close, letting me rest there for a moment.

"Am I missing something?!" Zack's voice peeped in at the top of her vocal range, and I had almost forgotten she was there. I didn't bother getting up or trying to explain, I just groaned a bit and listened to the rest of them chuckle.

"Oh darling, allow me to explain," Emily began to speak and cleared her throat, though I could tell she felt rather overwhelmed by everything herself. I felt Maddie shift from beneath me and her own voice chimed in.

"Wait, you knew about this?" Maddie asked as she tried to move me, maybe so that she could see the nervous and sheepish grin on my face.

"Just Fiona and myself, dear," Emily tried to correct the situation. "I found out a while ago that Josh was honestly and irrevocably infatuated with you, and let me say, that is putting it lightly. Fiona only overheard us talking about it a few days ago."

"Um, I figured it out, too," Greg's meek voice squeaked in, and I had expected as much from him. There was a time, long ago now, that he knew me well enough to have seen that something was up. I guess a part of that closeness still hung on.

"So everyone knew about this, except for me?!" Zack was utterly dumbfounded, for once. Though it was no surprise, I mean he was always far too interested in studies and fluting to pay attention to interpersonal relationships.

"Well if it's all the same I'd say I didn't know much about it 'til I shut myself up with Josh for that weekend," Maddie tried to calm him down, but I heard him expel a great frustrated sigh. Maddie lowered her head a bit, her voice drifting somewhat lower, "You, you don't think it's odd or somethin', do you?"

"What? No!" Zack hurriedly defended himself, coming over to us in a rushed pace. "I just wish you had told me. I mean..." He kind of smiled a bit, though I could tell he was clearly a little uncomfortable with the sudden change. Zack was no good with change. "I can kind of see it. You two always were really close."

"You have no idea." I snickered with a devilish grin, causing Maddie to shove me somewhat roughly back into my wheelchair despite my hiss of pain. "Ouch, it was just a joke, Mads!"

"Remarkable, even while bedridden you two still bicker and rough-house," Emily spoke up in a rather bemused tone, crossing her arms and shaking her head as she watched us carry on.

"Hey, I'm not bedridden, note the wheelchair?" I corrected her as I pointed to the contraption below me. Grinning, I turned back to Maddie, "Can't say the same for ol' freckle-face over here."

"I oughta wallop you with this cast," she made a face, threatening me with her heavy hand as best she could. "But I don't wanna rip out any stitches."

"That reminds me." I picked up the bottom of my shirt and looked around at my midsection, finding exactly what I was looking for nearly right away. I was all bruised up really badly, and I could see all these little scrapes along with this big stitched up wound that seemed to stretch to my back, "Jeez, look at me, I'm hardly in one piece." From the scarred over wound on my leg, to the many little scars from three years ago and just one day ago, to this monstrous wound on my midsection, I wasn't sure there was an inch of my skin that _wasn't_ scar tissue.

"I reckon I don't look much better." Maddie curiously looked down at herself, still covered in the blanket.

"Well, when we're all healed up, one day we're going to look at these scars and say, hey..." I admired the wound before looking up at Maddie fondly. "I got that on the best night of my life." She looked surprised to hear such a thing, but returned the smile readily.

"Shucks, Josh." Maddie could not help from smiling and, though she tried to hide it, blushing. The others all made some cutesy musing sounds, which only made Maddie all the more self conscious and embarrassed. I found that adorable though.

I reached up and put my hand on hers, though it was pinned still by the cast and everything. Her fingers moved against mine and accepted my support, holding my hand as best she could manage. My body still hurt all over and I was unusually cold, but I did not want to leave her side again. We stared at each other silently, our connection much stronger than any fickle words could express.

"Did you guys have sex?" I almost fell over as Fiona's words hit me, and Maddie just gaped in shock. Greg nearly passed out and Zack and Emily both stared at her incredulously. "What? It's just a question!" Everyone heard the heart rate monitor hooked onto Maddie suddenly speed up faster and faster, and Fiona gasped loudly. "You totally did!"

"I'll take that morphine now." Maddie groaned as she pulled the blanket up over her face and sunk down a bit in her bed, the furious flushing on her face intensifying. I snickered a bit and tried to contain my amusement, which was quickly slashed by the sharp pain in my side due to the force of my laughter.

I knew later I'd have to send an Iris-message to Chiron at Camp Half-Blood and let him know what had happened. I knew more than a few of my friends would kick my behind as soon as I got back.


End file.
